


Return to Oz

by AskMeNoQuestions



Category: Emerald City (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AskMeNoQuestions/pseuds/AskMeNoQuestions
Summary: Lucas arrives in Kansas to bring Dorothy back to Oz to help fight the Beast Forever, but first he'll have to get her to trust him.





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Continues on from the season one finale, so spoilers for the entire season. 
> 
> Pure head-canon, and obviously I don't own any of these characters.

 

“You’ve come to bring me back.”

“I’ve come to bring you home.”

For a moment she stares at him, trying to quell the desperate surge of hope that rises in her. The temptation to take his hand and let him drag her back to Oz is as overwhelming as it is unexpected.

In the week since she was finally released from hospital - Sam fighting it every step of the way - she’s tried to coax herself back into the comfortable life that she'd missed so desperately... but Kansas doesn't fit like it used to. What happened in Oz has changed her, and though the bruises are fading, the dreams are becoming more vivid. Sometimes she wakes with the smell of poppy in her nose, more often with the fizz of magic coursing through her veins. She feels fidgety and urgent, pacing the worn floorboards of the farmhouse while Em and Henry exchange concerned looks that she pretends not to see.

“This _is_ home,” she says, meeting his gaze with as much defiance as she can muster. If she says it often enough, maybe it will start feeling true again.

His jaw tightens, and she recognises the flash of frustration in his eyes, but before he has a chance to respond a voice behind them says “Dorothy?” and she turns to see Em hurrying towards them, scuffing at her stained fingertips with a cloth.

The older woman stops short, casting a dubious look at the tall stranger, her eye catching on the long sword hanging from his belt before she turns back to Dorothy. “And this is…?”

Dorothy's lip curls, and she says, “his name is Roan” at the same time as he offers “Lucas” and snatches the breath from her throat.

Em can’t decipher the look that passes between them before the man – Lucas – adds gently, “Roan is gone.”

“Gone,” repeats Dorothy, coldly.

“Gone,” he insists. He clears his throat, glancing quickly at Em before returning his gaze to Dorothy. “He… disappeared on a farm just outside of Gillikin. He won’t be back.”

Dorothy can feel the blood roaring in her ears and for a moment she's worried her legs might give out. She hasn't allowed herself to think of the farmhouse and what happened there, but it's not so easy to forget the sensation of his calloused hands around her throat. Sometimes on sleepless nights she summons the memory of his betrayal, letting the remnants of the fear that propelled her to drive a knife between his ribs sweep away other, softer feelings that she'd rather stay buried.

When she's certain she can trust her voice again she says, "Em, can you give us a moment?"

Em touches her shoulder gently, "I'll be in the kitchen. There's apple pie for dessert. You didn't touch your dinner, but you need to eat something."

After she's gone, Dorothy bends down to ruffle Toto's ears, and the dog huffs with contentment, leaning his big bulk against her legs.

Looking up at Lucas, she asks "how do I know you're not lying to me?"

He looks at her searchingly for a moment before saying "I've never lied to you," and, when she opens her mouth to respond, he says more vehemently: "Not once, Dorothy. I've never lied to you. I don't think you can say the same."

The blood rushes to Dorothy's cheeks, equal parts rage and shame, but she can't deny the truth of it. He's never lied to her - not knowingly - while she's kept her secrets close to her chest.

She is abruptly exhausted - cold to the bone, her head aching where the doctors stitched her up - and she wraps her arms about herself to hide the shudder that courses through her.

The wave of guilt that washes through Lucas at her reaction is visceral. He curses under his breath and takes a step towards her, but his outstretched hand falls back to his side when she flinches away from him again.

"You can't be here," she says.

His shoulders slump. He'd told the Ozma that he was the wrong choice for this mission; that whatever had been there between them was gone, destroyed in a matter of seconds by a single act of violence. He'd wept when he'd recounted his crime, while Ozma looked impassively on, then sent him anyway. There weren't many people left in Oz that Dorothy would know or recognise: Ojo was dead, Jane imprisoned, Glinda refused to relinquish Leith, and Ozma declared that Jack would be too conspicuous with his clockwork heart (though Lucas suspected that there was more to Ozma's reluctance than the young ruler had been prepared to reveal). The one concession they'd made was to allow him to take the dog with him.

"I can't return without you," he says, simply. "Without the gauntlets. I can't summon the storm."

She looks startled, and lifts her hands to examine them. The skin is smooth and unblemished. "I didn't know whether they had come with me," she admits, wide-eyed. She hasn't tried to invoke them, afraid of what it meant if they didn't come to her.

"They're a part of you," he says, and for one shattering moment she remembers sitting next to him on the wagon, the grin he gave her over Sylvie's drooping head, and the corresponding surge of warmth she felt in the pit of her belly. _oh good. I'm glad everyone's included_.

Dorothy sighs, "I'm not going to be much good against the Beast Forever. The gauntlets aren't... I can't control them the way you think I can. And the stone giants. Sylv- Leith crumbled them to dust. I couldn't stop the war, I made it _worse_. I brought _guns_ to Oz, Lucas, and the soldiers turned them on _children_. Guns might not kill witches, but they're going to kill plenty of other things."

She looks close to tears and he wishes he could take her in his arms, but he can't stand to see her back away from him again so instead stands helplessly and watches her pull herself together.

"I can't help you," she says, "I don't belong in Oz."

"You were born in Oz," he reminds her.

"I belong _here_ ," she snaps, and giving him a wide berth she strides back towards the farmhouse with Toto following in her wake.

"That went well," he says under his breath, before turning on his heel to follow her.

She ushers the dog through the screen door and turns to see him hesitating with one foot on the step, "The dog can come in. You can't."

"Doroth-" but she's gone.

 

***

 

She dreams of the last rays of dying light slanting through mottled glass and catching on burnished skin. The texture of scars under her fingertips, the smell of leather and steel, and the sound he makes when he muffles his groan against her neck and surges into her, his fingers splayed behind her knees, opening her wide. A crack, and the world tips sideways, they're falling, and she's reaching for him but her fingers can't make a purchase. Another crack and she bolts upright in bed, her body singing with need, and feels a low rumble of thunder pass through the house.

It's _pouring_. She can hear the metallic drips out in the hallway where Em's set out an obstacle course of saucepans and buckets to catch the drips coming through the old roof. Toto whines quietly from the foot of the bed, and she gives his ear a fond tug before sliding out of the sheets and making her way to the door.

He's still there. He's sitting on the veranda swing with his sword in his lap, staring out across the wide vista. There's an empty plate and glass stacked neatly beside him, and despite herself she's can't help feeling a surge of affection for her parents _. Typical Midwestern hospitality_.

He startles as the screen door creaks open, and when he turns to face her she sees his gaze skim over her long legs, bare under the shorts she wore to bed, before raising his eyes to meet hers.

She pitches the pillow she brought from her room at him, saying "come on," and he slowly rises to his feet and follows her into the house.

Dorothy gestures at the couch, "you might as well sleep," she says, and holds her hand out for his sword. He doesn't hesitate, keeping his eyes on hers as he unbuckles it from around his waist and passes it to her. She runs her fingers over the worn stitching on the hilt and turns away, beginning to make her way back towards the shadowy corridor.

"Thank you," his low voice reaches her from the other side of the room, and she turns to look at him.

"It doesn't mean anything," she says.

 

***


	2. Truth

 

The light is streaming through the windows when he wakes, and he can hear the soft murmur of voices coming through from the kitchen before an older man - Henry, he assumes - appears in the doorway. He gives Lucas the once-over through narrowed eyes before muttering something under his breath and stomping past, letting the screen door clatter shut behind him as he leaves.

Lucas swings his legs to the ground, but before he has a chance to rise Em comes into the room and hands him a steaming mug of something quite pungent.

"Coffee," she says by way of explanation, and pulls a chair up to sit immediately in front of him. "Now. I think you and I need to have a bit of a chat."

He takes a tentative sip from the mug - he remembers Dorothy mentioning coffee wistfully while they were travelling through Oz - it's bitter, but not unpleasant. He takes another sip and waits.

"Your name is really Lucas?" she asks, and when he nods she adds: "but it's also Roan?"

He hesitates. "It _was_ ," he says carefully. "It isn't any longer."

She ponders on that for a moment, before saying, "Dorothy says your name in her sleep sometimes. They don't sound like pleasant dreams. We thought she was having nightmares about the town, but I think that it's more likely they're about you."

He looks down at his scarred hands and remembers how easily they encircled her slim neck. The memory of it sickens him, and for a moment he's certain he's going to be ill, but he concentrates on the curls of steam rising from the cup and eventually the sensation passes.

When he looks up Em is watching him. Her eyes are wary, but not unkind.

"I hurt her," he admits, his voice rough. "I'll never forgive myself for it. I don't expect her to."

Em nods. "Probably best you don't mention that to my husband," she says wryly. She stands up and walks through to the kitchen, and when she returns she has his sword in her hands. She sits down again, and places it on the low table in front of them. "By the looks of this, you're from that other place."

He looks at her in surprise, and wonders just how much Dorothy has told her.

Em quirks her brow at him, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "Twenty years ago a terrified young woman showed up at our door in the middle of a storm with a baby girl and a crazy story. We were never sure whether it was true or not, but when they found Dorothy after the twister hit town it was clear to me at least that she'd been gone for longer than ten minutes." Her eyes darken, the smile falling from her face. "She had a number of half healed injuries that weren't easily explained to the staff at the hospital. That place wasn't good to her."

He lowers his gaze in assent, and when Em speaks again her voice is cold. "You're here to try and take her back?"

"It's her choice," he says miserably. "But yes. I was sent here to bring her home."

"Why?"

"Her mother is there."

He can tell he's shocked her when she shoves her chair back and stands. "Karen Chapman is in the hospital right now."

"Her mother's name is Jane. She's... in trouble. She needs Dorothy's help." He swallows, "We all do."

Em regards him silently for a moment. "If that's true, Dorothy will return with you. She’s not the kind of person who turns her back on the people who need her."

He can see the tremor in her hands as she bends to take his sword up from the table, and when she presents it to him her face is white. "You'll protect her," she says, and it isn't a question but he nods anyway.

She seems satisfied with that, and with a sigh she gestures for him to stand up. "She's at the hospital. Come on, let's find you something less conspicuous to wear." She puts her hand on his arm, "And Lucas? She missed you."

 

***

 

Karen is still unconscious, but the familiar hum and beep of the many machines hooked up to her is reassuringly steady, and Dorothy is lulled into a peaceful trance as she sits and waits for her answers.

She sound of the door opening breaks into her reverie, and she turns her gaze from the prone figure in the bed to see Sam, watching her with that gentle, careful look that she's so _sick_ of being the recipient of.

"You should be resting," he says, and a pulse of frustration courses through her.

"I'm _fine_ ," she says, standing as he comes into the room.

He brushes a curl of hair away from her temple to take a closer look at the bruising there, and she has to resist the urge to slap his hand away. "This is looking better at least," he admits. "You're a fast healer."

"One of my many superpowers," she jokes weakly, and isn't surprised when he doesn't smile. "Sam. Come on. I'm fine. Just a bump on the head and a few scratches and bruises." They've had this conversation more times than she can count in the days after the ambulance delivered her from the crumpled ruins of Karen's trailer.

He sighs, "I just wish you'd let me look after you."

"I'm not a wounded dog," she snaps, her voice louder than she'd expected. She casts a guilty look at Karen, then grabs his hand and drags him out of the room and into the corridor. "I can look after myself."

He says something in response, but she can't hear what it is over the roaring in her ears when she sees who's standing in the waiting area.

_what on earth?_

It's _him_ , dressed incongruously in a pair of Henry's jeans and a t-shirt that is doing absolutely nothing to disguise the muscles in his shoulders. When she first met him in Oz she'd thought he was handsome, but in a place of such cruel beauty he looked like he belonged, and after a while the sharp planes of his face and intensity of his gaze didn't seem so out of the ordinary. In her own world, dressed in ordinary clothes, the effect of him is devastating. Two of the interns are twittering over him, but he doesn't seem to notice - his eyes are fixed on Dorothy's hand where she's still grasping Sam's.

Sam looks back over his shoulder. "Who is that?" he asks her, his voice rich with suspicion.

"He's nobody," Dorothy assures him, scanning the waiting room, trying to figure out how he got here.

"He doesn't _look_ like nobody," Sam says darkly, his gaze taking in the scars and shadowed stare. "He looks like trouble. I’m going to call security.”

Dorothy shakes her head, “No,” and tries to search for an explanation. "He's… his name’s Lucas. He’s been helping Em and Henry out at the farm."

"The farm-" Sam, suddenly grips her arm. "How long has he been at the farm?" he asks her, his voice tight. "Is he the one responsible for the bruises we found around your neck?"

She disengages from his grasp and walks slowly up to where Lucas is waiting – she can feel Sam close behind her, the waves of anger rolling off him.

Lucas doesn’t spare the other man a glance. His eyes are on Dorothy’s, and a muscle twitches in his jaw. “Em said I’d find you here. She needs you home.”

“Dorothy-“ says Sam behind her, his voice a warning, and she turns back to him plastering a smile she doesn’t feel on her face.

“It’s fine, Sam. I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me if Karen wakes up.” A beat, and she lifts on to her toes and presses a kiss to his mouth. It's petty, and it's cruel, and she doesn't care, because this is what Lucas has made her, and she wants to _hurt_ him. She wants him to feel a little of what she did when he took Glinda in his arms, breaking her heart and every promise he’d ever made to her in one breath.

Without another glance she turns on her heel and walks towards the exit, and after a moment she hears him behind her, the rhythm of his footsteps on the linoleum floor as familiar as her own heartbeat.

He’s silent as she hoists herself into the cab of her truck and he follows suit, fastening his seatbelt conscientiously. _yep. he definitely arrived with Em._ The atmosphere between them is charged, and Dorothy feels reckless. She’s spoiling for a fight.

He hasn’t taken his eyes off her since they left the hospital, but they’re halfway home before he finally speaks. “That man. He’s a… a healer, too?”

“He’s a doctor,” Dorothy says, her voice clipped, willing him to ask the question.

“And he’s someone important to you?”

She takes her eyes off the road for a moment and looks at him; his face is carefully blank, but she can see the tension he’s holding in his shoulders. Facing forward again she lifts her chin, “He’s someone that I _lay_ with,” though this isn’t true. Not anymore.

He finally turns his gaze away, looking out the window at the dusty brown land racing past, “I’m glad for you.” He doesn’t sound glad.

“And he’s not _married_ ,” she snaps.

He says nothing, but out of the corner of her eye she can see his fingers clenching into fists.

“And he hasn’t even _once_ tried to kill me,” she finishes hotly, and can tell from the swift turn of his head that she’s got him.

He makes an inarticulate noise deep in his chest, then: "So this is it?" he growls, "We’re just going to keep swinging at each other until one of us is too damaged to retaliate?"

She swerves the truck off the side of the road and slams it into park. "You tried to _kill_ me!" she snarls.

"As I recall, you returned the favour," he says, and his voice sends a thrill of fear through her. "You strung me up and you _left me to die_."

"Get out of the truck." He doesn't move, so she throws open her own door and storms round to the passenger side and wrenches it open. " _Get_ _out_!"

He unfastens his seatbelt with shaking fingers, then jumps out of the truck and takes three long strides away before spinning back around to face her, his expression so anguished that the white-hot rage coursing through her veins condenses into grief and suddenly, horribly, she’s crying.

“Tell me it was a spell,” she begs him through the tears. “Tell me it was Glinda, and you didn’t know what you were doing, that you couldn’t stop it.”

“I don’t know,” he says, and he’s reaching for her, but she stumbles back again. “I was weak, and confused. What I felt-“ he stops, “what I _feel_ for you is so big I thought it couldn’t possibly be real. I wanted it _gone_. It hurt _too much_.” He realises that his own cheeks are wet. “And Glinda sent me- She told me if I didn’t then she would, and I didn’t question it. I was her sword hand, and before that I was the Wizard’s, and I never thought to question whether the things I did were right or wrong. Dorothy-“ his voice breaks on her name, “you were the first person to see me as more than a tool; and I wasted that chance, and I hurt you and I’ll regret it every day for the rest of my life, but I’ll kill myself before I ever hurt you again.”

She’s sobbing properly now, “How can I ever trust you again? If it wasn’t a spell, how can I go back to that place without thinking that everyone, _everything_ , there wants me dead? That the only person who would fight for me might decide it’s too _complicated_ for me to be alive.”

He wants to tell her that he’ll stand beside her for as long as she’ll have him. That he’s never been surer of anything in his life. He wants the future that seemed so easily within their grasp before everything came to pieces in Calcedon. But there are needs greater than his own, and while he wants to keep her as far away as possible from Oz, and Glinda, and those who would do her harm, an entire world hangs in the balance.

"The Beast Forever," he begins gently, "has been a flood. A firestorm. A plague. A generation ago it manifested as an earthquake that swallowed much of the region of Nonestica. This time the Beast Forever is a man - a skinchanger - and while he's powerful, he's _mortal_. He can be _killed_." Lucas hopes she understands the significance of what he's saying. "He's been beaten before - when he was Roquat the Red the witches stripped him of his skin and confined him in the Prison of the Abject. _That_ is why we need you. Ozma has the spells, but they're worthless without the gauntlets."

But Dorothy has gone pale, the colour washing from her cheeks, and she stares at him in horror. "The Prison of the Abject," she says. "Stripped of his skin and sent to the Prison of the Abject. Oh God."

This time when he steps towards her she doesn't flinch away, grabbing his forearms like he's the only thing that will keep her upright.

"I set him free," she says.


	3. Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay, and the brevity. This one was a bit of a slog.  
> As ever: I don't own these characters, or the world, etc etc (if I did I would have renewed them already)

She wastes precious minutes trying to force her hands to stop shaking long enough start the truck, while Lucas watches with concern. After a few moments he places his hand over hers, stilling the tremors with his warm fingers and helps her guide the key into the ignition. “It’s not your fault,” he says, his voice gentle.

She doesn’t look at him, “You know that’s not true.”

The drive back to the farm passes in a blur - she's on autopilot and barely registers the flat and familiar horizon. Instead, her mind is on stranger landscapes, imagining the destruction that she's unwittingly brought down upon it.

Pulling up next to the old barn, Dorothy isn’t surprised to see Em waiting for them on the porch. She doesn’t know what to say, how to explain, but when she mounts the stairs Em takes her face gently between work-rough palms and Dorothy realises that maybe she doesn’t have to.

“I’ve packed you a bag,” Em says, and turning her gaze to Lucas she adds, “Your clothes and weapon are in Dorothy’s room, give me a moment to say goodbye before you leave.”

Lucas knows an order when he hears one, and with a final look at Dorothy’s resolute face he makes his way into the house.

Toto’s waiting inside the screen door, and he shadows Lucas down the dim hallway, claws clicking on the worn floorboards. It had taken months to earn the big dog's trust again, but he'd persisted - Toto was the only connection he'd had left to _her_ , and as his wounds healed it seemed important to keep the reminder of what he was – and what he had _been_ – close. It felt like penance.

The door to Dorothy’s room is open, and Lucas can see his jacket and sword stacked neatly at the foot of a narrow bed. He doesn't want to imagine her there, tousled and sleep-warm, but his traitorous mind remembers long limbs, the slide of lips against skin. For a moment he pauses on the threshold, uncertain, but Toto pushes past his knees and after a heartbeat Lucas follows.

The room smells like her, and his heart lurches so badly that it takes him a few breaths to collect himself. It’s spartan, but homely – there’s a collection of books stacked two rows deep on a low shelf, a few trinkets, and photos of Em and Henry on a scarred bureau. When he turns around, pulling his borrowed shirt over his head, he spots a framed needlework sampler on the wall above her bed. It says “Home Is Where The Heart Is”, and for a moment he can taste apples. _so lucas is home?_

Back on the porch, and he can see Dorothy and Em sitting together on the steps. Dorothy is curled in on herself, waves of dark hair falling around her face. Em has a freckled arm around her shoulders, and when she leans in to whisper in Dorothy’s ear he thinks he can make out the word ‘somewhere’.

He wants to give them time and space, but it’s an impossibility; and when he clears his throat Dorothy’s spine straightens and he can tell that she’s ready to go; that she’s already halfway there, impatient to pay restitution for a mistake she didn't realize she was making.

Em looks at him sharply as Dorothy gathers up the bag at her feet, “You remember what we talked about,” she says. “Keep her safe. Bring her home.”

“Em,” Dorothy protests, but the older woman is having none of it: “Don’t take unnecessary risks. Think, god’s sake, before you act. We want you back in one piece.”

Dorothy turns her face away to hide the exasperation, and catches sight of a tight-lipped Lucas. Dressed in his familiar rough clothes and leather coat he looks more like himself, and against all odds he seems to be smothering a smile. She remembers then, his breath on the air as he tells her _some of us_ do _care,_ and feels a flare of something indefinable uncurl behind her ribs. “What will you tell Henry?” she asks Em instead.

“Nothing, for as long as I can. Who knows how long you’ll be.” Em shakes her head, “This is crazy.” She takes a deep breath, cups Dorothy’s face in the palm of her hand, “We love you. Be safe.” And with that she’s gone, into the darkness of the house.

Dorothy pushes down the wave of trepidation that threatens to overwhelm her, looks up at Lucas standing on the stair above her and says, “Well come on then. Let’s go raise a storm.”

 

***

 

Magic, it seems, is easier said than done, and Dorothy feels like an idiot standing in the middle of the stubbled remains of a cornfield and looking up at the cloudless blue sky. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admits finally, hands dropping by her side. The gauntlets are frustratingly absent, and she’s furious with herself for believing that it would be so easy.

Lucas has been watching her impassively, one hand looped through Toto’s collar, the other grasping the cumbersome pack that Em packed.

“West used words when- you know. In Emerald City,” she squints up at him. “You’re sure they didn’t tell you what I was supposed to do?”

He shakes his head, “Spells are different from magic. Magic is more primal. It comes from within. Glinda-“ he winces, but forges on, “she always said that spells were something you did. Magic was something that you released. Like… like a sneeze.” Actually she’d compared it to something else entirely, but there was no way he’s having _that_ conversation with Dorothy.

She narrows her gaze at him, but when he doesn’t continue, she huffs a sigh and closes her eyes, lashes fanning against her cheeks. He watches her closely, relishing the opportunity to run his eyes over her face, to chart the architecture of bones under dusky skin. His palms are itching to slide along sharp angle of her jaw and into the dark tangle of her hair, and he clenches his fingers around collar and strap.

Another minute passes, and he sees her breaths slow and deepen until suddenly her lips part on an “oh,” and he when he looks down he sees gold glinting in the sun.

She opens her eyes, and lifts her hands to her face wonderingly, “That was… different.” There’s something heady and electric humming through her veins: a warmth that’s sitting somewhere deep and sending tendrils of sensation out. Her skin is hyper-sensitised, and when the breeze blows an errant curl of hair against her neck it feels so much like a caress that the blood rises in her face. _no wonder the witches fought so hard for the right to practice magic_ she thinks ruefully.

Every other time the gauntlets have appeared it’s been a defensive reflex to fear or rage, unleashing destruction she’s barely been able to comprehend, let alone control. This is different, but when Dorothy examines the feeling she realises that somehow it’s also familiar. She knows just where to pull at the filaments of power, and when she _twists_ them she can feel the electricity build in the air, a hot wind that tastes of sand and poppy.

Without taking her eyes from the clouds suddenly scudding across the blue expanse of sky, she reaches out a hand to Lucas, “Hold on.”

It’s nothing like the twister: that terrible, bewildering chaos and tumble. It’s more like the sensation she remembers from East’s palace: a prickle of pins and needles, a vertiginous dissolving. She holds the memory in place, letting it guide her, trusting it to know the way home, and when she feels solid ground under solid feet again she knows they’ve done it.

Oz.


	4. Enough

There is little left of East's castle but rubble, and Dorothy wonders whether the ever-loyal Sullivan managed to make it out alive. The tornado that raged over the domed towers has dissipated, but it seems unlikely that anyone could have survived the devastation - enormous chunks of stone are scattered around the landscape like children's blocks, some still adorned with their ornate mosaic cladding.

Lucas is propped up against a boulder the size of a cow. He's looking quite green, and she has to smother an uncharitable smirk. Evidently travel via tornado doesn't agree with him.

She's gives him another minute to recover, casting her eyes over their arid surroundings. It’s bleak and brown, the rough road far below them winding empty as far as she can see. She and Lucas could be the only two people in this world, she thinks, and her heart responds with a painful thump.

Toto is snuffling around the bag that Em packed for them, and Dorothy hopes that there’s something to eat in there. She hasn't had much of an appetite lately and is startled to discover that after weeks of picking at her food and enduring Em’s pointed looks, she's ravenously hungry. It could be the magic - she can still feel a little of it humming through her veins like a low-level electrical current - but a small part of her suspects it's just this, _Oz_ ; that underneath all the fear and trepidation she's somehow _glad_ to be back.

Lucas groans as he pulls himself unsteadily to his feet, shaking his head as if to clear it. "I'll be happy if we never do that again," he says dryly, and this time she doesn't bother to hide her grin.

Rifling through the pack nets her a handful of protein bars and she mutters, "oh, thank god," sending a silent prayer of thanks to Em before grabbing one and tearing it open.

Breaking a piece off, she offers it to Lucas who eyes it queasily, "Um. Maybe in a bit."

Toto's considerably more enthusiastic, and she wipes well-licked fingers on the seat of her pants as Lucas negotiates coat, sword, and pack.

"Let me-" she reaches for the bag, but he twists away from her, saying: "It's fine. I've got it."

Despite everything, she hates the careful way he avoids touching her now. She misses the casual liberties he used to take with her body: the way he’d slide his fingers from wrist to hand, the heat of his palm in the small of her back. He’d touched her like he needed to reassure himself she was real, and after a while he’d touched her because he liked it. With a sigh, she shoves empty hands into jacket pockets. "So where to now? Emerald city?"

He shakes his head, "Ev. We'll need to get you back to Ozma and the Witches, formulate a plan."

She’s uncertain of who, or what, Ozma is, but she knows that Ev is in the opposite direction to the gilded capital of Oz and presumably, her mother. Her lips tighten, "We _need_ to rescue Jane. If you think I'm leaving her imprisoned for one mome-"

"Dorothy," he cuts her off. "It's too dangerous. I'm not... I made a promise to keep you safe, and I intend to keep it." He scrubs a rough hand over his face, "I'm not letting you waltz into Emerald City without an army at your back, and that _army_ is in _Ev_."

"The _Witches_ are in Ev," she says, " _Glinda_ is in Ev. You're telling me it's a safe place for me to be?"

"Glinda won't touch you," he says, his voice ice.

"And you?"

He looks away from her, "I won't touch you either."

Her cheeks flame, "You know that's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant," he says, and she can tell he's only just holding on to control. "Dorothy. I'm sorry. I don't _have_ the answers you want from me."

He's spent countless black nights trying to unravel the truth of what happened in that farmhouse; the horror and the confusion and the red rage never loses its potency, no matter how many times he revisits the memory. "I'd like nothing more than to tell you it was _her_ ," he spits. He knows that his anger is misdirected and struggles to soften his voice, "but I don't know what the truth is, and I won't _lie to you to earn your trust_."

She looks incredulous, "Do you really believe that trust is even an _option_ for us any more?"

He sags like her words have struck him a physical blow, and it takes a moment before he quietly replies: "You're here. That gives me hope."

She wants to tell him she's here for her mother, for the beast, for Sylvie. Not for him. _Never_ for him. She knows the words that will finally slam the door shut between them, but when she looks at him they die on her lips.

He looks _wrecked_ , and for the first time she notices the shadows under his eyes, the pallor of his skin. It's not just exhaustion; he's diminished somehow. Defeated. She tips her head to the side, and something suddenly occurs to her. "Why did they send you?"

He grimaces, "They needed someone you would recognise."

"And if I wouldn't come back? Or couldn't?"

"Someone expendable."

Her breath catches in her throat. "Glinda was OK with that? With the possibility that you might not return?"

He won't meet her gaze, "When it became clear I'd failed to- to do what she'd asked of me." His eyes flick to hers, and just as quickly away again, "I lost any value to her as a soldier."

She's shaking a little, digs her hands deeper into her pockets, "And as a husband?"

This time he does look at her, his grey eyes clear and certain. "The man who would have called himself that is gone. She understands that."

Dorothy wonders whether Glinda had fought for him, then thinks of what the Witch had told her when they met on the battlefield: that love is nothing compared to survival.

He's not the Lucas she lost in Calcedon - she knows that - but he's also not the Roan who came at her with blade and bare hands. He’s something else entirely more complex and with surprise she realizes that she wants to know him. Maybe hope is a good place to start.

 

***

 

 _The trouble with Ev_ , thinks Tip, _is that it’s never bloody quiet._ The city’s industry is built on a bedrock of clockwork mechanics, and it’s always whirring and ticking and humming and just generally making a racket. It’s no use thrashing around on a bed the size of his old bedroom when just outside the shutters whirligigs that seem to serve absolutely _no practical use_ are whizzing around with a whining noise that sets his teeth on edge. He goes to sit up and nearly scalps himself when it turns out that one elbow is firmly planted on six inches of curly hair. _Not again_.

Every night he goes to sleep as Tip, and every morning wakes up as Ozma – just another nasty, unnecessary reminder that whatever choices he would have made about himself, about his future, about his identity are so far outside of his control as to be laughable. Well, he doesn’t have any subjects, or witches to placate right now, and with the slightest hint of effort he shrugs back into the familiar _boy_ and flops back down on the pillows.

There’s a scratching at the door that he prefers to ignore, but he knows who it is when the hinges creak open and a slim black silhouette sidles in from outside.

“Mistress,” he greets her, and the figure pauses as she registers the lower timbre of Tip’s voice.

“My Queen,” West responds sardonically, “we’ve news from the East.”

Tip heaves a sigh at that. It’s an _official_ visit from advisor to ruler, and he knows the Witch prefers to make her dispatches to Ozma.

It’s easier to transform back into _her_ , and she prefers not to think about the ramifications of that, even as she feels the weight of hair suddenly cascading down her back, the fullness of her breasts, and the uncomfortable _absence_ between her thighs. If she had to be a girl, why couldn’t she at least be a less... _girly_ one?

It feels wrong to have this conversation in bed, so she swings her legs out from under the covers and stands up, throwing a robe around her shoulders. “Well?”

West makes herself at home in a plush chair, plucking a clementine from the bowl set on the small jeweled table next to it and tearing into the flesh with blackened fingertips. She looks up at the young queen lazily, but Ozma knows her well enough now to recognize the alertness in her eyes. “We’ve had reports of a tornado at the ruins of my sister’s castle.”

Ozma’s eyes widen. “You think it’s them?” It was a long shot at best, and no-one really expected the girl to return, but perhaps they’d underestimated her. 

West’s lips curve into a not-entirely-friendly smile, “It seems likely.”

The Queen sits down on the end of the bed, her mind racing. _Maybe… maybe we actually stand a chance._ “Who knows?” she asks urgently.

“You. Me. My sister, when I decide to tell her,” West’s eyes gleam, “I’m sure she’ll be _delighted_.”

“I should send someone to collect them,” Ozma says, but West shakes her head.

“The soldier knows to bring her here. Sending someone to them will attract attention, and the Beast has his spies. He knows who she is, and what she is. We can’t risk him learning that she’s in Oz.”

It makes sense, but the Queen is impatient. She paces the carpeted floor on bare feet while West watches her, “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

“Prepare,” says West, and her voice is softer. “Rule. _Sleep_.”

Ozma throws the Witch a withering look that earns her another wolfish grin, “And how am I supposed to do _that_?”

West shrugs one narrow shoulder, “I can prepare you a tea.”

“ _No poppy_ ,” Ozma’s not far from burning the yellow fields in the borderlands to the ground. She’s seen the damage it does, and if takes a ban to keep her Mistress from falling back into the habit, well, then so be it. “Just. _Talk_ to me.”

West waits until the young Queen has tucked her feet back under the brocade covers, then asks: “What do you want to hear?”

Ozma looks at her for a moment, then says: “Tell me your name.”

The Witch hesitates, “You know my name.”

“I know your _designation_. What was your name before you were ‘The Wicked Witch of the West’?”

West sighs, “It was lifetimes ago. I can’t even remember.”

“North remembers hers,” Ozma says, and is rewarded with a decidedly un-West-like snort of laughter.

“She’d _like_ you to think her name is Glinda, but in truth it’s a name she gave herself.”

Ozma grins at the ceiling, she _likes_ making West laugh. “So maybe I should give you one. How do you like… Tattypoo?” It’s not her best effort, but it wins her another laugh, and when she turns her head she discovers that West’s closer than she thought, curled up beside the bed with crossed arms resting on the mattress.

“West is enough,” says the Witch. She’s never chafed against the limitations of her role the way her sister does. Has never wanted to be more than Mistress of the Western Fields, Vessel of Truth and Solace. She has her magic and now she has her queen. That is enough.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Locasta Tattypoo" is actually the canon name of the Witch of the North that immediately precedes Glinda. It's an idiotic name, but there you go.


	5. Night

It takes them several hours to make their way down the mountain, the rocky ground treacherous under their feet. Toto doubles back and forth between Dorothy and Lucas, all wagging tail and lolling pink tongue. It feels equal parts awkward and familiar, and Dorothy is struck with a disorientating sense of déjà vu, watching Lucas' broad shoulders as he negotiates a way through the scrub ahead of her.

By the time they reach the road, the sun has started to dip below the horizon, dyeing the sky a peachy gold that would be pretty if it wasn't accompanied by a chill that seeps through Dorothy's bones and sets her teeth chattering.

Lucas has been all but silent since they set out, but when he turns around and clocks her shivering he swears under his breath and lets the pack drop to the ground, already shrugging out of his coat, "Were you planning to say something, or just freeze solid and see if I noticed?" he says crossly, surprising her into a laugh.

She takes the proffered coat gratefully. It's comically big on her, but warm from his body and she has to suppress a little shudder of pleasure as she pulls it tight around her shoulders, "How much further?"

"To Ev? Maybe four days. I think we're done for today though." He scowls up at the darkening sky, "it's not safe to travel at night. Especially now. And it's been a long day."

She chafes at the delay, thinking of Jane, but he's right: she's aching with exhaustion, operating on too little sleep and too much emotion.

He's expecting her to fight him on it, so when she nods instead he feels a little of the tension release from his shoulders. "We should try and stay away from the villages," he says, "but tomorrow I'll see if I can get some horses from one of the outlying farms. That'll get us to Ev faster."

She remembers this from last time: the ease with which he reads her. "Thank you," she says, meaning it.

He manages to scrounge enough wood together to get a fire merrily crackling, and she's soon warming her fingers against the flames. Game is scarce, so Dorothy unearths more protein bars from the depths of the pack (Lucas cheerfully declaring them revolting) and they eat in companionable silence as the last of the light fades.

As the night gets colder and the twin moons rise Dorothy leans back on her elbows and scrutinizes the unfamiliar skies. She wonders idly if the constellations have names in Oz, and that reminds her of the question she's been meaning to ask Lucas: "What's Ozma?"

" _Who's_ Ozma," he corrects her. "Princess Ozma. Well Queen now, I suppose." He thinks of the young ruler on whose unprepared - some say unwilling - shoulders has landed the fate of a realm on the brink of civil war, under threat from a terrible evil that no-one really understood. "She was the daughter and heir of King Pastorius. Everyone thought she'd been slaughtered with her parents, but it turns out some hedge witch named Mombi had been keeping her concealed."

Dorothy sits up in shock and stares at him across the fire, "Mombi. You're kidding."

He quirks a puzzled brow at her, and she continues: "Mombi was the woman who tried to poison you. She had a boy impriso- oh." She stops short, connecting the dots. " _Tip_. Tip is Ozma." It makes a sick kind of sense. No matter what she does, she seems to end up entangled in Oz's intrigues. Another thought occurs to her, "If Mombi was a witch then you couldn’t have killed her."

She's inexplicably relieved by this news, but he remains silent and when she glances over at him he's looking at her with sad eyes.

"There's plenty of blood on my hands," he tells her, "one life doesn't change that." His voice gets rougher, "And I _wanted_ her dead. When I saw her- and you were-" he cuts himself off and takes a few heavy breaths, "I wanted to tear her into pieces. I still do."

"Oh," she says, and realizes that despite the menace in his voice she's not afraid. It's much harder to remember Roan and the terrible clenching pressure of fingers around her throat when it's just the two of them camping out together under the black skies, and everything about him is telling her _Lucas_.

At her feet Toto whines into a huge yawn, breaking the sudden tension in the air, and despite herself Dorothy follows it with one of her own. In the dim light of the dying fire she sees Lucas' teeth flash white in a smile, and he says "Try to get some sleep, I'll take the first watch."

She's too tired to argue, and swathes herself tighter in her borrowed coat, tucking her hands into the too-long cuffs. "Don't let me sleep all night," she tells him sternly, shuffling down until her head is resting on the pack.

"I'll wake you," he assures her, and she gives him a pointed look that makes him smile again before she closes her eyes.

He waits until her breath evens out and deepens, and when he's sure she's asleep he rises to his feet. The fire is high enough to be seen in the darkness so he banks it down, making sure it's still warm enough to keep the pink in her cheeks. It's cold during the night, and there's a brittle sharpness to the air that wasn't there before the Beast came.

He remembers the last night he’d spent with Dorothy under the open sky. Beneath the cover of the forest with Sylvie sleeping a few feet away she'd slid cold fingers along his jaw and drawn him deeper into her kiss. He’d felt a shiver go through him and couldn't tell whether it was from the snow or from wanting her.

With an effort he drags his mind away from the memory – it does no good to remember what had been, and the feelings are too painful to dwell on. What is lost is lost.

Sitting back down by the fire he can feel the fatigue creeping up on him. Any other night he would have unsheathed his weapons and kept himself awake coaxing the nicks and dints from the blades, but he doesn’t want Dorothy to wake and find him with sword in hand so he takes a deep breath of the bracing air and trains his eyes on the surrounding darkness.

As a soldier he’s spent his share of nights awake under the stars, exchanging stories and ribald jokes with other members of his regiment. More often than not it would just be him and Eamonn towards the end, the two of them staring into the fire and talking quietly about their pasts, their hopes for the future. When the older man spoke of his wife and children there was a softness in his voice that made something in Lucas ache. He wonders what happened to his former captain after the arrival of the Beast in Emerald City, hopes that Eamonn had enough time to escape with his family before the gates were barred.

It was refugees from the city who’d found him, two nights after the great winged shadow had passed overhead. They’d lifted him down from where Dorothy had left him, laid him gently in the back of their cart and carried him to undeserved safety in Ev. One of the men in the group had been an apothecary and his two young children had watched in silence as he’d unwrapped the binding around Lucas’ ribs and revealed the wound she’d given him. To his relief the man hadn’t asked him any questions; had simply nodded and said stiffly, “At least whoever patched you up knew what they were doing” before retying the bandages around him.

The air gets colder as the night progresses, and Lucas watches the moons make their slow way across the sky. It’s a few hours before dawn when he hears her say his name in the darkness, so softly that for a moment he thinks he’s imagined it. When she says it again there’s a hint of panic in her voice, and he’s by her side before he realizes that she’s still sleeping. _She’s been having nightmares_ , Em had told him, and when he sees how tight her fists are clenched he curses low under his breath. He doesn’t want to startle her awake, but wants even less to leave her at the mercy of her subconscious.

He kneels down beside her, saying “Dorothy”, and when he reaches a hand out to her shoulder three things happen in quick succession: Toto lurches awake, and when he sees Lucas looming over his mistress he gives a warning bark that’s laced with menace. It wakes Dorothy, who opens her eyes with a frightened gasp, her hands coming up defensively, and Lucas barely has a chance to register the glint of gold on her fingers before a concussion of power surges through him and he’s thrown back a few feet, the wind knocked from his lungs.

She’s on her feet before the stars clear from his vision, hurrying over to where he landed with an “Oh my god, _Lucas_.”

He can’t quite catch enough breath to tell her he’s fine, and suddenly she’s on her knees beside him, tugging at his shirt and laying his chest bare to the cold air.

“I’m _so_ sorry.” Underneath the mat of hair she can see a starburst of reddening skin – whatever she’s done to him it’s going to _bruise_. She lets her fingers skate along the line of his sternum, presses gently on the cage of his ribs. Nothing seems to be broken, thank _god_ , and the wheezing hitch in his breath is fading with each exhale. She can feel her own heart thundering with the combination of adrenaline and magic pumping through her veins, and with an effort she tries to slow her breath down to match his.

She coaxes him into a sitting position, peeling his shirt wider so that she can check his sides, and he says hoarsely “That was a nice trick,” as she prods at his abdomen. She doesn’t reply, but her fingers still against his skin, and when he turns his head to look at her she’s staring at the scars on his ribs.

The larger one is ragged: straight, but puckered around the edges. It’s healed badly. The other – a few inches higher – is smaller, but fresher. She traces shaking fingers along the still-healing scar, remembers the sickening feel of the blade sliding into him. “I shouldn’t have,” she says brokenly.

He reaches for her hand, flattens her palm against his skin and holds her there as he ducks his head to seek her gaze in the darkness, “You should have. I deserved it, and more.”

She won’t look at him, keeps her head bowed and speaks to the ground; “I shouldn’t have put you up there. You weren’t a danger to me – by the time I’d stopped the bleeding you were barely conscious – I should have just left you.” She’s whispering, but he can hear the vehemence in her voice.

He can feel her trying to draw away and he presses her fingers harder against his ribs, capturing the heat of her palm against him. He shakes his head, telling her “You didn’t know whether I’d come after you.”

“No,” she finally looks up and meets his eyes. “I was _angry_. It wasn’t because of– because of what you’d done. I strung you up because I wanted to punish you for wishing that we’d never been.” She takes a heaving breath, her voice rising, “Everything that had happened between us. I’d never _felt_ like that before, and you just wanted to wipe it clean. Like it was nothing, like _we_ were nothing.”

“Dorothy,” he cuts her off, “it wasn’t nothing. It was _everything_.” He wishes that he knew how to make her understand. “I gave up my life to be with Glinda. My friends, my home; I didn’t even hesitate.” He swallows hard, “For two years everything I was, was hers. Then you came along, and you _laid waste_ to my heart, and I realized I’d sacrificed everything for a pale imitation of love. And I knew that when you left there’d be nothing left of me, and I think– I think I went a bit mad. I didn’t want to forget because what had happened between us was meaningless. I wanted to forget because I knew losing you would destroy me.”

Her eyes are huge as she stares up at him, and he finally falters to a stop, releasing her hand and gathering his jacket and shirt around him again. “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s not fair of me to lay that on you.”

She murmurs, “Lucas–“ but doesn’t seem able to continue, and after a moment he says; “Um. I should probably get some rest.”

She looks conflicted, but nods her agreement, and standing she walks back over to the other side of the campfire as he shuffles down and wearily lays his head on the bare ground.

It’s a long time before he sleeps.


	6. Chapter 6

Glinda can taste the rot of the human world on the back of her tongue. Mother of the Sound and Pure, hers is a sensitivity _clearly_ not shared by the sister who had the temerity to summon her - summon _her_ \- to present herself to the little pretender who'd been frightened out of Emerald City hours after claiming the throne.

She'd had half a mind to refuse, but one thing she's learned from twenty years dancing attendance on a pompous old windbag is how to pick her battles, so she's here, and she's holding her tongue, even though West's pet project has been keeping her - _a Cardinal Witch_ \- waiting while she dealt with a string of grubby petitioners.

When the doors finally open and a uniformed guard gestures for her to follow, Glinda gathers her skirts around her and sweeps into the room, noting with disgust that no one announces her.

The room is ostentatiously decorated, with swathes of velvet curtains obscuring the walls, carpets underfoot, and the glitter of a chandelier hanging from the tall ceiling. It's a far cry from the refined elegance of Calcedon, but she knows that these mortals do enjoy their creature comforts.

Ozma has her pretty little buttocks planted on a high-backed chair that's been intricately carved with masks and cogs and Glinda can practically smell the power emanating from the girl’s pores. It's bad enough that Roan's would-be assassin somehow managed to inherit East's gauntlets - why her idiot sister decided to dilute her power by siphoning the magic off into a pair of _trinkets_ is a mystery she'll never understand - but West's decision to further pollute their sister's legacy by bestowing her spells on a _mortal_ is unforgivable.

The girl doesn't stand as Glinda approaches, and the disrespect rankles even as she sees West's white-knuckled hand on the Ozma’s shoulder and realizes that her sister is instructing her little queenling to remain seated. Hiding her contempt at the pitiful attempt at a power play she sinks into a curtsey, deliberately holding it just a beat too long.

Ozma clears her throat uncertainly, and says, "Mistress North. Thank you for coming all this way."

"My queen," purrs Glinda (she's nothing if not well practiced at this), "I am ever at your service." West muffles a snort, and Glinda tamps down on a wash of anger. "My work in the North is important," she continues, "I know you would not call me away without cause."

"Cause enough," offers West languidly. "The return of the girl from Kansas." She studiously plucks an invisible piece of lint from her sleeve, and sashays down to where Glinda is standing, adding with a leer: "Your soldier was clearly _very_ persuasive."

Glinda is too experienced to reveal the quicksilver shock of dismay that courses through her, but behind the calm façade her thoughts are spinning. This was _not_ part of her plan. To begin with, she's surprised that the Wizard's tornado chamber had actually worked; she'd been certain it would tear its occupant to pieces, not deliver him safely into the arms of his lover. But more pressingly, if the two had them had returned then the girl had some level of control over the gauntlets, and that meant-

"You've called me here to help you fight the Beast again." She rounds on West, crackling with anger, her fingers itching to slap the smile from her face. "You little fool. Did you learn _nothing_ from the last time? We sacrificed an entire generation of witches to the Beast Forever, and you think that two untrained _humans_ are going to succeed where they failed?"

"The gauntl-" Ozma begins, but Glinda turns to her and snarls: " _Be silent_.” She's white lipped with fury, and even West seems taken aback.

“It’s taken a mortal form this time,” says West feebly, “we’ll never have a better chance to defeat it for good.” She holds her hands out placatingly, “We have a responsibility to _try_.”

Glinda wonders if West remembers the bloated corpses that washed up on the steps of the Emerald City, the scores of waterlogged witches whose spells were lost forever under the waves. So much power squandered, and for _what_? “Our only responsibility is to our _sisters_ ,” she hisses. “The Beast’s function is to cleanse this world of the weak, and it is not our battle, nor our place to interfere.”

“ _Cleanse the weak_?” Ozma cuts in, her voice cold. “You’re talking about _people_. Children. Mothers and fathers.” She rises to her feet, looking angry enough to strike at Glinda. “As their Queen, it is my duty to protect them. And as _your_ Queen, I am telling you that you can either help me, or you can find a new role as Mistress of the Prison of the Abject.”

Glinda’s eyes narrow. The girl is young - barely more than a child - and headstrong. She had hoped the new queen would be more malleable, but if she’s anyone’s puppet, she’s West’s. That thought sends an unnerving jolt of alarm through Glinda, and she wonders for the first time whether she’s been out-maneuvered; whether her sister has been playing a game of her own all of these years. The panic feeds the rage, and she hisses, “You seek to rule Oz, and you don’t even understand it.”

North’s anger is a palpable force and Ozma is suddenly concerned that she’s pushed too hard; West had made it clear to her - they _need_ Glinda and the coterie of young witches that she’s training in the mountains. North is right to say that two untrained humans stand no chance against the Beast Forever. For them to succeed they’ll have to work together. With an effort she reins in her temper, softens her voice: “For better or for worse, we _share_ this world, and so I ask for your assistance… as my father asked for your mother’s.”

The mention of Mother South gives Glinda pause. She remembers the Witch’s council that took place after King Pastorius came to them with his plea, the arguments that had raged well into the night. South was soft, and her affection for the people of Oz made her weak, but she had reminded the coven that the Beast was a danger to witches too. On some level Glinda knows that in time the Beast is likely to turn its attention from easy prey to hunt the greater power in Oz. Eliminating it now will remove the greatest potential threat to her rule later. And if Ozma and the girl from Kansas want to sacrifice themselves to the cause... well then, so much the better.

“I’ll help you defeat the Beast Forever,” she says finally, and watches Ozma’s shoulders sag with relief. “But this is a world of magic, and it will be _ruled_ by magic. Once the Beast is gone, the people of Oz will be safe, and you will return to whatever hovel you crawled out of.” Ozma’s head snaps up, and in her suddenly wide-open eyes Glinda thinks she detects a trace of something unexpected:

_Hope._

***

“Tell me more about the Beast,” says Dorothy, breaking a silence that has stretched for several miles.

The two of them have followed the rough road since dawn, the jagged peaks of a mountain range looming in the distance. By the time the sun was high in the sky they’d reached the shores of an inland sea and Dorothy realized that they were retracing the path they’d taken before, this time in reverse.

She’s several paces ahead of Lucas, and for a moment she thinks he hasn’t heard her question, then: “There’s not much to tell,” says Lucas. “Or not much that we know,” he amends. “He barred the gates of Emerald City, and cloistered himself in the Wizard’s keep.”

She stops and waits a moment for him to catch up, looking over her shoulder as he comes up behind her, “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“He only leaves the city at night,” Lucas continues, “and only when the moons are low. The witches can track him sometimes, but often they’ll lose him in the darkness. We always know where he’s been though; every morning afterwards we start getting reports of villages abandoned, empty farmsteads. People just… disappear.”

“Killed?” Dorothy quietly asks.

He shakes his head, “Gone. Ozma has sent her best scouts, but they’ve never found any trace of what happened to them. Except sometimes – “ he pauses, “Do you remember what you told me Sylvie did to those people who were pretending to be her parents?”

She remembers the stink of sulfur, the frozen looks of pain and terror, and the waves of power that rolled off Sylvie’s tiny figure. She’d flinched as she’d smashed the girl free, shards of what had once been living and breathing crumbling to the ground. “She turned them to stone,” she says.

“He does something similar,” Lucas tells her. “We’ll find them left behind. The very young or the very old. Babies in the crib. The sick and infirm. The witches don’t know how to reverse it.” His eyes are distant, “To begin with we brought them back to Ev, but there were too many. Now we leave them where we find them.”

Dorothy shudders, imagining deserted homes and the slow decay of their enthralled occupants. With a sudden thrill of apprehension she says, “Jane?” and almost stumbles with relief when Lucas shakes his head again.

“Your mother’s alive.” He’s quiet for a moment, then reaches out and wraps long fingers around her wrist, pulling her to a halt, “Dorothy.”

She registers a complex play of emotions on his face when she looks up at him, and then he says: “Your mother never meant for you to return to Oz,” and the bottom drops out of her stomach.

“You told me she’d sent you,” she says, disbelievingly, and sees a hot wave of shame sweep through him before turns his eyes away from hers and fastens his gaze on the ground at their feet.

“She did.” He drops her hand and takes a step backwards, widening the space between them. “She agreed to help us recover the gauntlets. She didn’t understand that it meant bringing you back too.”

He’d fought vehemently for the right to tell Jane the truth. Had paced the council floor for hours, arguing that Dorothy’s mother deserved to know that the weapon they so badly needed could not be separated from the daughter she’d sacrificed everything to keep safe. Ozma had been equally adamant that Jane would never agree. She’d wheedled, then threatened, then made it an order, but it wasn’t until West had hauled him into the East wing where they’d interred the hundreds of ossified infants that he’d broken down and acquiesced.

“You let me believe that Jane sent you to bring me back to Oz,” Dorothy says, and the disappointment in her voice cuts him to the core. “You didn’t trust me enough to come back because it was the _right thing to do_ , so you dangled my _mother_ in front of me.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounds miserable, and when he lifts his head his eyes are filled with trepidation, “It was wrong of me not to tell you.”

She should be angry, but discovers that she can’t muster the outrage: she remembers too well what it feels like to carry a secret so close to a lie. When their positions had been reversed the bargain she’d made with the Wizard had sat like a hot coal in the pit of her belly. She could hardly bear to look at him when she’d admitted the truth, but he’d taken her face in his hands, had kissed the regret from her lips, and she’d felt the ground solidify under her feet again.

This time she settles for laying her palm over his heart. “You were right to bring me back,” she tells him, and feels his chest rise on a sharp inhale. “I’m glad that you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this a bit of a nothing chapter, guys. 
> 
> I've had to spend a bit of time here constructing some of the scaffolding for the rest of the story, and I'm also trying to sort out some of the logic holes that cliffhanger finale left us with. 
> 
> I've still got my fingers crossed that we'll get some canon answers down the track, but hopefully this chapter can offer some reasonable explanations in the meantime.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well guys, we didn't get our renewal.   
> It's disappointing, obviously, but I'm happy to continue with this for as long as you're interested in reading - looks like the only closure we're going to get is the one we create ourselves.  
> Comments are so very welcome, especially now.

The first farm they encounter seems abandoned, brown leaves decaying in heaps against the grey stone walls. Lucas makes Dorothy stay under the cover of the trees, where she watches him wait patiently at the knocked door for a moment before forcing it open with his shoulder and disappearing into the darkness of the house. He reappears a few minutes later, his mouth set in a straight line, and when she asks what he found he just shakes his head tightly and doesn't answer.

The second farm is little more than a cottage, but there's a well-maintained vegetable patch out the front, and Dorothy can see a thready line of smoke curling out of the chimney and dissipating into the cold blue sky.

Lucas is even more cautious this time, taking Dorothy's arm and drawing her further back into the woods until the cottage is totally obscured from view.

"They're either very lucky, or they're still here for a reason," he says when she opens her mouth to protest. "Either way it's safer if they think I'm traveling alone."

"You think they're spies?" She doesn't like the idea of him confronting the Beast's agents by himself. "Lucas, I don't know about this. I should come with you at least."

He huffs with exasperation, his hand tightening on her arm before he steps closer and says firmly, "You'll stay here. _I'm_ not the one this whole plan is dependent on."

She shakes his grip off with a roll of her eyes, but as annoying as it is to admit: he's right. She’s too easily marked as an outsider in Oz, and the Beast both knows her, and knows the power that she carries. If he- _it_ discovers that she’s returned, it’s as good as painting a target on her back.

She drops the pack she’s carrying to ground, barely resisting the urge to give it a kick, and shoots Lucas an annoyed glare, “Fine.” But she doesn’t want to leave it at that, so as he turns to leave she says "Hey," and when he looks back at her, continues, "Be careful, OK? You're not expendable either."

The look he gives her is unreadable, then his lips twitch into a quicksilver grin before he disappears between the trees.

The forest is uncannily quiet after he's gone, the only sound coming from Toto as he snuffles about in the leaf litter contentedly before lifting his leg again a fallen log. She wonders whether the birds and animals that normally populate the woods have been frightened off, or whether this barrenness of life is normal. There's so much about this world that she doesn't know or understand, and the sheer magnitude of the task ahead of her is daunting. She hopes that she's up to the challenge.

Before long she can feel the ache of cold seeping up from the wet ground into her legs, and to distract herself she untucks her hands from her pockets and concentrates on summoning the gauntlets. It's easier now that she knows what to expect, not to summon the power, but to reach for it within and unwind the bonds that keep it quiescent. The emerging weight of gold and rubies brings with it the same wash of sensation as last time, and she's thankful for the opportunity to examine the feeling without Lucas' steady gaze on her face.

The magic thrums through her, a heady pulse of energy that she can feel in every nerve ending. It's just on the edge of too much; not unpleasant by any means, but it makes her feel like she's barely holding on to control, like a single touch might send her flying apart. She discovers she can draw on the power, spooling it out from somewhere deep in her belly. It lessens the exquisite sharpness of sensation racing over her skin and she gathers her strength and sends it arching out from her, a bright surge that crackles in the cold air and sends Toto into a frenzy. She can feel it pouring out of her then, a torrent that’s gaining momentum as it grows, and for a frightening moment she’s not sure she can stem the tide.

She thinks about the broken young witches in Glinda's fortress, the ones pushed beyond their limits, and that thought is enough to cut through the increasing panic. With a gasp she finally manages to force the flow of magic back under her control: the deluge becoming a trickle, before stopping altogether, leaving her feeling limp and depleted.

The gauntlets are receding when Dorothy hears a voice that sounds like Em's and Jane's and Karen's and somehow all of them and none of them at the same time. It says "Reckless," and she thinks she feels the gentle touch of a hand on her cheek before her legs finally give out beneath her and she crumples to the ground.

She's concentrating so hard on not losing her meagre lunch all over the forest floor that she doesn't realize Lucas has returned until he's on his knees beside her saying urgently, "What happened? Are you OK?"

She is, she realizes, as the world stops spinning and the nausea subsides. She's cold and a little achy, but the hollowed-out feeling has faded. "I'm fine," she reassures him, "I was practicing." She lets him help her to her feet, grimacing at the sensation of wet denim clinging to her legs.

Seeing her fussing over the mud smeared on her knees like she hasn't just taken _five years off his life_ transforms Lucas' alarm into frustration and he snaps, " _Practicing_?" He'd felt the blast of magic from the farmhouse, a whip crack of energy that had made every hair on his body stand on end. If it was strong enough for him to sense it, then it was strong enough to act the clarion call for whoever, _what_ ever, might be on the lookout for an unexpected display of power.

“It got a little out of hand,” she admits, and he wants to shake her until her teeth rattle, or maybe just wrap her up in his arms and not let her go until his heart stops feeling like it’s trying to slam its way out through his ribcage.

He takes a deep breath and releases it unsteadily, trying to bring himself back under control. “Dorothy, you’ve _seen_ what happens to a witch who pushes herself beyond her limits. Can you just– “ his voice is rising again, and he inhales a lungful of cold air, “Can you just exercise a _little_ bit of self-preservation until we reach Ev.”

She stares at him defiantly for a moment and when she lifts her chin he braces himself for another fight, but then her shoulders sag and she sighs, “I don’t like being helpless.” Looking up at him she adds, “I didn’t want to walk into enemy territory totally unprepared and unprotected.”

“You won’t be,” he assures her. “No-one’s sending you to fight the Beast alone. You’ll have soldiers, witches-“

She shakes her head, “I’m not talking about Emerald City. I’m talking about Ev.” Lucas is silent, his eyes fixed on her face, and she continues: “I _know_ that they sent you to all the way to Kansas to bring me back. They obviously _need_ me for this battle, and it should make me feel better, but since the first moment I stepped foot in this world people have been trying to hurt me. I’m never going to be safe in Oz.” She lifts her hands up and looks at them. There’s no sign of the gauntlets, but when she concentrates she can feel them humming away underneath her grimy skin. “I just wanted to feel like I could at least protect myself this time.”

He’s reaching for her before he can even register the impulse, and when she doesn’t flinch away he palms her cheek, his fingers tangling in the snarl of hair at the nape of her neck. “No one who has ever met you would make the mistake of thinking you were weak or defenseless,” he tells her, his voice rough and low. Her lips part, and he’s close enough to hear her sharp inhalation as her eyes meet his own and her pupils blow wide. She tilts her face a little into the warmth of his hand, and the gesture is so trusting – and so familiar – that he feels his breath hitch.

He wants to kiss her. He wants to press his mouth to her golden skin and see if she tastes as sweet as he remembers. He wants to draw her to him and fit the warm curves of her body to the hard edges of his own. He wants her with a violence that frightens him.

It’s enough to force him back a step, his hand falling limp by his side, and he turns his face to the sky so that he doesn’t have to see the walls come down behind her eyes. “It’ll be dark in a few hours,” he says after a moment. “We should get moving.”

The bay mare is stocky and rough-coated, already saddled and placidly waiting next to the log where he’d hurriedly looped the reins when he’d seen Dorothy fall to her knees in the clearing. He holds the horse’s head as Dorothy put her foot in the stirrup and swings an experienced leg over the saddle. When she’s seated she quirks an amused brow at his obvious surprise and says, “What? I grew up on a farm.”

He mounts up behind her, and she can feel the warmth of him like a solid wall against her back. Coupled with that peculiar moment before it serves to make her feel a little flustered, and the warm heat that’s been sitting low in her belly flares again as she feels his arms slide forward to take the reins, goosebumps racing across her skin.

He freezes when he feels her shiver run through them both.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sitting up straighter to draw his body away from hers. “They only had the one horse.”

She looks down at his hands as he coaxes the mare into a walk, his long fingers looped around the leather. “Honestly? I’m impressed you managed to talk them into letting you take it.” She thinks for a moment. “Unless…?”

He huffs a quiet laugh, his breath stirring her hair, “I didn’t steal it.”

“Were they spies, do you think?”

He’s silent for a few seconds, then, “I don’t think so. No. I hope not.” Another minute, and he adds, “I knew him.”

She cranes around to look him, “What?” His eyes are on the trees, and she nudges him with her shoulder until he looks down at her again, “The farmer? How is that even possible?”

He shrugs, “I grew up around here.”

She stares at him in astonishment. It hasn’t occurred to her to imagine him as a child, but of course he was one once; he didn’t just spring into being when she chanced upon on him, strung up amidst the smoldering ruins of an upturned wagon. He has a whole history that predates her.

Looking around the woods with new eyes, she tries to imagine him as a boy, prowling these same pathways and trees. It’s impossible, and she turns her gaze back to him, “That’s all you’re going to say?” she says, incredulously.

He laughs again, and she feels some of the stiffness leach from his body, his chest coming to rest flush against her back again.

“There’s not much to tell,” he says, “I lived in a village nearby with my mother and younger sister – my father died when I was too young to remember much about him, but he left my mother with enough to get by. It was a comfortable enough life.” He pauses for a moment, negotiating the mare around a tree that’s fallen in the middle of the road, and when he continues his voice is sad, “The floods came when I was about ten. The Beast. I wasn’t fast enough to reach my mother, but I managed to get my sister to safety. When the waters receded there wasn’t much left standing. Then the soldiers arrived and took me back to Emerald City with them, and I never returned.”

Around the painful lump in her throat she asks him, “What about your sister?”

“Orphanage.”

The word sits flatly between them, ugly in its finality, and she tries to wrap her head around his story. “They didn’t keep you both together?”

He sounds genuinely perplexed when he says, “Why would they? After the Beast came they had surplus orphans; it was soldiers they needed, and I was old enough to train.”

She’s staggered anew by the brutality of this world; that it would separate a grieving child from his sister, put a blade in his hand, and thrust him into adulthood at an age where she was still playing with dolls. That no one would have paused to consider if it was the right thing to do. “What was her name?”

He replies, “Eilidh,” and she can tell from the tone of his voice that it’s a name he hasn’t allowed himself to say in a very long time.

“You never found out what happened to her?” His silence is all the answer that she needs.

The years after the defeat of the Beast Forever were a muddle of confusion as the Wizard took control of Oz and set about breaking down centuries-old traditions and beliefs. Records were lost or destroyed in the chaos, and the location of an entire generation of orphans wasn’t high on the agenda.

Lucas _had_ tried to find his sister, but he knew better than most that even if she’d survived the war there were only two paths available for her in adulthood. He’d studied the veiled faces of every councilwoman to enter the halls on Glinda’s train, searching for any hint of the mischievous girl who would smear sticky kisses on his cheeks and scream blue murder if he left frogs in her bed. He never found her, and gradually, after many years, he stopped looking. He never visited the brothels.

He’s staring straight ahead, but he can feel Dorothy’s breath on his collarbone when she twists her head to look at him. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It was a long time ago,” he tells her.

The shadows lengthen then fade as the day descends into evening. Lucas knows they should stop soon, but the steady rhythm of the horse has lulled him into lethargy and Dorothy is a warm weight against his chest. Every lungful of air he takes is coloured with the scent of her, and he can’t bear to bring them to a halt and set her down away from him.

Night falls and he rides on, eyes sharp for the shape of wings against the stars.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, SO sorry this has taken me so long. Terrible writer's block coupled with absolutely crippling self-doubt, and some extraneous Real Life issues, and there you go. This is actually a bit of a half-chapter, but I didn't want you guys to have to wait any longer for the rest. Which I've started. So hopefully it won't be another month before I can get you another update. I hope you're still reading (thank you if you are).

On bad nights Jack dreams of the recoil of a gun. More powerful than he could have imagined, it throws his body into a spin that's never quite fast enough for him to miss the ugly, blackened hole that mars a perfect ( _too_ perfect) white brow.

On good nights he dreams of the wet crunch of bone under his impervious fists, the satisfaction of red bleeding into mud and grass until there's nothing left of the fleshy jowls and smug, lying mouth.

On _really_ good nights he dreams of Tip.

But no matter the dream, he always wakes with a gasp; tangled up in linens clammy with sweat, adrenaline pulsing through his veins, and- and the steady tick of his clockwork heart.

It's this methodical, unhurried, inhuman beat that reminds him most of what he's lost. Not the scars and missing limbs, but the simple, unassailable fact that he'll never feel his heart race again.

It's not that he's not thankful for what Jane did for him, but when he's sad, or sore, or lonely, and wondering what _humanity_ actually means and whether or not he can still make a claim to it; that's when he would like someone to talk to. _Her_ , actually. Languidere. Because who else would better understand what he's going through than Ev's very own (not)living, (not)breathing automaton?

His mind skitters away from the thought of her, even as his eyes seek out the fast-closed door to Jane's workshop.

When they'd found him in pieces on the battlefield, they'd brought him back to the city, and Ev's engineers had done what they could for him. They lacked Jane's skill - or perhaps her madness - and the result was scarcely more than cosmetic. Once Ozma arrived she'd tried to install him in his old quarters in the palace, but his legs don't work they way they once did, and he couldn't tolerate the thought of day after day being endlessly carried up and down the stairs like an invalid.

He keeps to Jane's low-ceilinged home instead, enveloping himself in the sulfuric scents of oil and metal, the silence behind the workshop door keeping lonely company.

Tip visits as often as he can - and it's _always_ Tip, never _Ozma_ \- and he sprawls spread-legged on the threadbare divan. Flat chested and narrow-shouldered under a jerkin that Jack recognizes as his own. Sometimes he convinces Jack to go out drinking, and they exchange dirty stories and flirt with the pretty barmaids. They don't talk about that night, the terrible misguided kiss, the push, the fall. Tip takes care not to brush against Jack's left hand, and in return Jack doesn't ask what it's like to have breasts. And when the pneumatics in Jack's legs fail him and he staggers, or he misjudges his grasp and swipes his tankard to the floor he'll blame it on the alcohol while Tip laughs uproariously and it's almost like it was before, except it isn't really. Not at all.

Sometimes he wonders if, given the choice, whether Tip would go back to the way it was before. Life under Mombi's suffocating care might have been boring, but at least it was _simple_. Tip was a boy with bad blood, Jack was his best friend. No witches or crowns or monsters in the sky; just whispered promises and half-baked schemes that seemed every bit as fanciful as the planned adventures they'd concocted together.

Then she'd come - the girl who tore the sky - a catalyst for disaster in more ways than one.

It's a funny thing about being crippled: people assume his mind has gone the way of his legs, so when he sits alone in the tavern he _hears_ things. Things he's not meant to hear. He hears that the great winged beast now resides in the Emerald City, that its arrival coincided with Dorothy's disappearance, and that the two things are almost certainly connected. From the soldiers he hears the rumour that one of their own has been sent to bring her back from wherever she went, from the citizens he hears the gossip that her sacrifice is needed to appease the beast, from the witches he learns that they want her dead.

Deep in their cups the people of Oz plot, and as he nurses his warming ale he listens to Dorothy's imagined slaughter a hundred times over.

He hopes that wherever she is, she has the sense to stay gone.

***

Ozma can’t decide what she hates most about being a queen: The interminable hours spent sitting on her ass while petitioner after petitioner comes to her with their grievances, or the dresses. Probably the latter, she admits to herself, squirming uncomfortably to try and alleviate a little of the pressure from the tight-laced bodice. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Glinda give her a quelling glare, and with a sigh she turns her attention back to the man in front of her. "So, am I given to understand that you want me to _force_ your neighbor to move into your cottage to cook and clean for you?"

"Not force," he says, mulishly. "Just tell her she _has_ to. I'm a busy man, I can't be wasting my time peeling vegetables and scrubbing floors. I'm on the _council_."

It takes a physical effort not to roll her eyes. The village councils have been a thorn in her side since she arrived in Ev. Self-important blow-hards who seem incapable of seeing the world outside the boundaries of their own villages and are always at her door asking for more - more supplies, more soldiers, more, more, more. To begin with she'd tried her best to help them, but as her reserves have grown thin so too has her patience. "And what of your neighbor’s own responsibilities? She has a home of her own to tend, her own children to feed." she asks the man, and watches as his face turns shifty.

"She's a tenant on my land."

"Which her husband leased from you. The contract doesn't become null and void just because he was taken up by the Beast." She's proud of herself for the way her voice doesn't waver. There's been too many losses, too many deaths. She's sick of it, exhausted by the daily reports of villages abandoned, families scattered, children orphaned or worse. She wants it done, or to be done with it. With a sigh she scribbles quickly on a piece of parchment and thrusts it at the councilman. "I won't force your neighbor to tend house for you, but this is a contract granting her the land that her family has leased from you in payment for her labor. A quarter acre for every month. Present it to her and see how you go, if she says no then you have her answer and mine too. I don't want to see you in here again."

The man sputters for a moment until one of Ev's red-coated guards approaches and, with a nod from the queen, takes him firmly by the elbow and escorts him out the door.

After he's gone Ozma risks a glance at Glinda who's standing stonily beside her. "Well?" she says, "Spit it out."

"Women can't own land in their own right. Only men can. And witches."

She sounds grudgingly impressed, and Ozma can't resist smirking at her. "So now they can," she says. "Men, women, witches. The cardinal points. Every region, every village, every person just out for themselves. There's been too much division in Oz for too long." She stands up, finally relieving some of the discomfort from the boning of the dress. "If we're going to stand a chance against the Beast we need to come together. And if I have to rule, I'm going to do it _fairly_ and _equally_. No more archaic laws that lifts one kind of person up while grinding another into the ground because of their race, or their sex, or whether or not they can light a candle just by thinking about it hard enough."

Glinda studies her through narrowed eyes. "The men won't like it."

"I don't care."

"And the witches will never accept a mortal as their leader. Not even one with stolen magic in her veins."

"I _don't care_!" Ozma rounds on Glinda, her temper finally getting the best of her. "Besides, there only seems to be _one_ witch who's struggling with me being on the throne, and that's you." She pulls the elaborate silver crown from her head, snarling when it catches painfully in her hair, and flings it down on the chair. "You want to rule Oz? Go ahead and sit your bony ass down and _you_ can spend day after day listening to men complain about stolen pigs and disputed property boundaries while some _creature_ squats in the Emerald City snatching up innocent people. _I never asked for any of this_!"

Before Glinda can formulate a reply, the doors to the throne room swing open and West strides in, hair wild around her narrow face and skirts swirling. She scowls as she registers the tension in the room and shoots Glinda an impatient look before turning to the remaining guard, “Get out.”

He almost trips over his own feet in his haste to obey her order, and he rushes out the door so quickly he doesn’t even spare a glance for the two figures who have sidled in behind the witch.

Ozma’s breath catches in her throat, and her eyes dart to Glinda who’s staring white-lipped at the taller of the two, something raw and open on her face. The witch says “Roan,” on a breath, and Ozma sees the soldier’s broad shoulders stiffen. He doesn’t look up though; his gaze is firmly fastened on the smaller figure who is cloaked in a jacket several sizes too big.

“You made it,” says Ozma as Dorothy finally reaches up and pulls the hood away from her face. The queen can see the glint of the gauntlets flash momentarily under the too-long cuffs, and wonders if the girl displays them as a warning.

“I’m here for my mother,” Dorothy says, looking warily around the room.

Ozma bites the inside of her cheek, unsure of how to proceed. “We’re very thankful that you came. _I_ am. I’m thankful.” She casts an uneasy look at the soldier, and he returns it impassively. “You must be exhausted. Both of you. Do you want to rest?” She realizes too late that she hasn’t thought to have rooms prepared for them.

There are shadows as dark as bruises under Dorothy’s eyes, but she shakes her head empathically, “I just want to get started.”

“Dorothy,” Lucas says, his voice low.

“Good,” says Glinda abruptly. “We’ll return to Calcedon and start your training tonight.”

Lucas’ head snaps up, and Ozma sputters with surprise, but while the color has drained from Dorothy’s face she looks resolute. “No,” she says. “I’m not going back to that place.”

“You don’t trust me,” Glinda says with cool derision.

“Not even a little bit.”

Glinda shrugs a slim shoulder and turns her back on Dorothy, her skirts sweeping in a broad arc as she stalks back to the throne and plucks Ozma’s crown from the seat. “No matter. It would be better for the Queen to kill you and claim the elements for her own.” She twirls the heavy silver between her fingers. “One less mortal to train, and my sister’s magic united again.” She gives West a dirty look, “It’s not ideal, but it’s a better plan than the one you have.”

Crown in hand, she strides back to the group, advancing so quickly that Dorothy can’t help falling back a step, and the room rings with the soft susurrus of steel on leather as Lucas begins to pull his blade from its sheath; but Glinda just hands the crown to Ozma with a disdainful smile, saying, “Put this back on, we’re about to have a guest.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dorothy feels tired enough to drop. 

Despite his reticence the night before, Lucas had deemed it safe enough under the cover of the trees to travel after sundown and the two of them had ridden almost steadily through the night. 

The steady rhythm of the horse coupled with exhaustion had taken their toll, and it hadn’t been long before Dorothy had drifted off into an uneasy sleep, surfacing only once or twice to find Lucas’ arm cinched tight about her waist, keeping her upright against the broad plane of his chest. 

He'd let the horse go a few hours outside of Ev, and they'd approached the city on foot. The last time she'd seen it, the Wizard's army had been stationed outside its walls. The colorful pennants and uniformed soldiers had given the rolling hills a deceptively festive air that was at odds with the carnage that was to follow. 

This time a hum of noise had reached them deep in the forest, and once the undergrowth had thinned out and they'd finally emerged from the trees, Dorothy realized that the outskirts of the city had become a sprawling refugee camp. 

Lucas had taken her by the shoulders and had turned her back to the mud and squalor, his grey eyes tight on her face, "Wait a moment."

His coat had been folded over his arm, and with a fluid movement he'd swept it over her shoulders, twitching the hood up to cover her face. 

"Keep your head down."

She'd been thankful for the heavy weight of wool narrowing her field of vision until all she could see was her own feet traipsing through the filth of the camp and Lucas' hand clasped tight around her own. 

Eventually mud had given way to cobblestone and the unhappy sounds of the camp had been replaced with the chatter and hubbub of the overcrowded city. A whirling clatter above her head had startled her, and she'd glanced up quickly enough to see something alien and metallic skitter across the sky several feet above the heads of the pedestrians. 

Lowering her face again, she'd realized that the hood had fallen back and she'd caught the wide-eyed stare of a young man sitting in the window of a tavern opposite. He'd looked familiar, but before she could place him Lucas had turned, and swearing hotly under his breath had tugged the hood back over her face. 

She'd thought he'd been overreacting, but now, with her unease ramped up to the nines and Glinda's casual threats still ringing in her ears, she wonders if she'd underestimated the danger they were walking into. 

A guest, Glinda had said, but she can tell by the look Tip-  _Ozma_  exchanges with Lucas that no-one else has been extended an invitation to this particular get-together. 

There's a thump behind the great double doors, and as they begin to swing open Lucas thrusts Dorothy behind him with one hand and draws his sword fully from the scabbard with the other. 

But, "Jack!" the queen exclaims as the intruder limps, red-faced and panting, into the room. 

It's the man she saw in the tavern, and Dorothy suddenly realizes where she'd seen him before. It’s Tip's friend, the pretty-faced boy that she'd interrupted flailing wildly at the twigs that blocked the door to Mombi's cottage. 

There are new lines of pain on his face now, and the neck of his shirt is hanging wide exposing raw, red scars and something else to her horrified gaze before he sees her looking and clutches the collar tight. 

"It's true then," he says. "You've come back."

West pins Lucas with an annoyed glare, "Did you parade her through the streets, soldier?"

"She can't be here," Jack says, turning a urgent face to the queen. "It's not safe. They want her dead."

"Who does?" Lucas and Ozma ask simultaneously.

" _Everyone_."

Dorothy can feel the gauntlets stirring, magic sparking at her fingertips with the sensation of pins and needles. Looking at Glinda she sees the witch watching her speculatively, and tamping down ruthlessly on the rising panic she says instead, "So what's new?"

Her voice is steadier than she expected, and it bolsters her courage. She looks around the room, "It’s not the first time people have threatened to do me harm here in Oz." She looks at West, and then at Glinda, “Both of _you_ have tried to kill me.” Transferring her gaze to Ozma she adds, “and you would have left me for dead.”

"In our defense," drawls West, "you murdered our sister."

There's a twinge of guilt when she thinks of East, but Dorothy forces an indifferent shrug. "Only a witch can kill a witch, isn't that right? None of you have ever been in any real danger from me." 

She can sense Lucas' eyes on her and remembers again the feel of his blood pulsing through her fingers as she tried to stem the bleeding. "I- I made some mistakes. I came back to try and fix them, but I'm not under any illusion that I'm welcome here, or that I'm safe." She looks at Jack apologetically - the rush to the palace cost him, and she can see the sweat beaded on his pale face. "I just want to help you to stop the Beast, save my Mom, and go home. Please."

West rolls her eyes and grabs Dorothy's wrist, fingers unnaturally hot against her skin as she lifts her hand high enough to draw the room's attention to the gauntlets still glinting in the light. "She wears the elements of a Cardinal Witch. If she can't defend herself from a few disgruntled villagers then she won't stand a chance against the Beast Forever, and this whole endeavour will have been a colossal waste of time."  She drops Dorothy's wrist and looks at Lucas, "Apart from this tin bucket, who else saw you enter the city?"

He shakes his head, bewilderment warring with exhaustion on his face. "I don't... we came through the slums. I don't even know how  _he_  saw her." 

"And before that?"

"No. No-one." 

Glinda cocks her head to the side and turns to Ozma with a smile that's just a breath away from bared teeth. "Be sensible, child. My castle is remote and secure. It would be far easier to keep her a secret at Calcedon."

"Secret, but far from safe," argues Ozma. 

Glinda's smile turns flinty. "I assure you that every single girl within my walls is loyal. None of them would dare act without my permission. 

"Well, yes, that's rather the problem," drawls West. "Loyalty to  _you_  doesn't necessarily mean loyalty to the crown, does it?" Her narrowed gaze lands on Dorothy briefly before returning to Glinda. "The girl doesn't trust you - with good reason, if the rumours are to be believed - and clearly has no intention of... enjoying your hospitality a second time. The queen's presence is needed here, and the two of them should be trained together since the magic they hold is two halves of a whole." She grins unapologetically. "There’s nothing for it, you'll have to train them here in Ev, Glinda. Go home, pack your bags, and tell that little red-haired bitch you've been training that she's in charge. We'll begin tomorrow." 

She strides to the door and flings it open, startling the guard who'd been stationed outside. "You," she snaps at him, "the queen has appointed a new-" she falters, but recovers quickly, "Companion. Have rooms prepared for her in the East Wing tower."

As the guard scurries off, West turns to address Lucas. "Your task is complete, soldier, you can return to the barracks."

Dorothy looks up at him quickly enough to see the wave of anger pass over his face before he has the chance to school his expression into something more neutral. 

"I made a promise that Dorothy would be safe," he begins carefully. 

"A promise we intend to take seriously," Ozma cuts him off. "Our success is dependent on it. Take Jack with you as you leave, he'll need some assistance on the stairs."

Jack is less accustomed to hiding his emotions, and his face flushes red with indignation as he glares at the queen. "I would also rather stay with Dorothy," he finally grinds out. "Her mother saved my life, and I won't return the favour by abandoning her to a pit of- of  _vipers_!"

"What an excellent guard you'll make," says West with a cruel smile. "You can frighten off any would-be assassins by squeaking your hinges at them."

Jack is rendered mute with fury, and as his blush deepens, Ozma decides she's lost the last of her patience. "Out," she snaps. "Everyone out. West, North. Out. You too, soldier. I don't care where you go." She turns to Jack, her voice softening somewhat. "Your rooms are as you left them. Send one of the servants for your belongings." 

When none of them move, she draws herself up to her full height, and eyes flashing she hisses, " _Get out_."

The last to leave is Lucas, and he hesitates in the doorway, giving Dorothy a long look that Ozma can't interpret before he closes the door quietly behind him. 

In the silence that follows, the queen lets her shoulders slump, and she lifts a hand to rub tiredly at her eyes. "Gods."

Dorothy tries unsuccessfully to muffle her incredulous huff of laughter. "Are they always like that?"

Ozma's mouth quirks, "Mistress West? Yes. Glinda seems to like being difficult for the sake of being difficult. Jack... it's complicated." She looks at Dorothy. "We haven't learnt yet how to be friends again, with me," she gestures to herself, her lip curled in disgust, "as I am."

How she is, thinks Dorothy, is  _regal_  in an ornate dress of moss green, spine straight, eyes clear, and silver crown looking entirely at home perched on elaborately styled braids. If she hadn’t met Tip in Mombi’s hovel – all ragged hair and grubby trousers – she would have thought Ozma had been born to this.

“Is it so hard?” She asks curiously. “Being as you are?”

Ozma looks conflicted. “It becomes easier every day. Like putting on a comfortable old pair of shoes. Familiar like.”  She smoothes her hands down the front of her skirt, then clutches her fingers in the silk convulsively. “I can feel myself slipping away, and it frightens me.”

“Lucas said Mombi had been keeping you safe,” Dorothy says. “That the spells that had made you Tip were there to protect you from the wizard.”

“Lucas,” repeats Ozma, her voice contemplative. “So that’s what you call him.”

Her words hit Dorothy like a punch in the chest, forcing the air from her lungs for a moment as she remembers the cold, echoing chambers of Glinda’s fortress; his voice, rough with impatience when he told her  _no,_   _don’t call me that_ ; and the terrible, final realisation that not only had she lost him completely, but that he’d never really been hers to begin with.

“He doesn’t respond to the name Mistress North calls him,” Ozma continues, misunderstanding Dorothy’s silence. “Nor would he offer up a name of his own. We’ve just been calling him ‘the soldier’.” She offers Dorothy a small smile. “I’m glad to finally have a name to know him by.”

"Is he-" Dorothy tries, then begins again. "Does he have to go back to his regiment?" 

Ozma gives her a curious look. "I suppose not. He's part of the Queensguard, and I _am_ the queen. Why do you ask? Would you rather I had him exiled?"

"What? No!" Dorothy shakes her head. "I just... I mean, with all due respect, I think I'd feel safer if he were here."

"Here?" Says Ozma, her eyes widening in surprise. "With you? You'd feel safer with him here? Even though he tried to kill you?"

It's Dorothy's turn for shock, and she stares incredulously at the young queen as something uncomfortably close to anger uncurls in her belly. "You knew about that? And you sent him anyway?"

Ozma blanches a little, but she holds Dorothy's glare steadily. "If we'd had any concerns about your well-being we wouldn't have, you  _must_  believe that."

“Must I?” Dorothy says, her voice rising. “Does your ‘we’ include Glinda? Because I’m pretty sure she expected Lucas to kill me, and I know she wouldn’t be opposed to having a second go.”

A wave of confusion passes over Ozma’s face, but it’s replaced just as quickly with a look of conviction. “I can’t disagree that she might try, but I can assure you that any danger you might be in won’t be coming from _him_. I’ve never seen someone so desperate to risk himself for the sake of others.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “It didn’t matter what we asked of him, how dangerous it was, he wouldn’t even hesitate. He led the only successful raid on the city – trying to get your mother back, by the way. He’s saved countless lives, has even snatched children up _during_ the Beast’s attacks on villages. The only time he’s ever said no to an order was when we told him we were sending him to Kansas. He was _furious_. Furious that we would think of bringing you back here, then furious that we wanted to send him to do it.”

“He thinks you sent him because he was expendable,” says Dorothy faintly.

Ozma shakes her head again, “He’s far from expendable, but it’s true that we needed you more than we need him. It was a calculated risk.” She pauses for a moment. “Eventually he told me what had transpired between you. I think he thought it would change my mind. It didn’t.”

Dorothy’s heart is thumping uneasily when she finally asks, “Was it a spell? Do you know?”

Ozma sighs. “I don’t, I’m sorry.” She hesitates for a moment, then reaches out to put a hand on Dorothy’s shoulder. “If it was a spell, then there’s nothing of it left. West turned his mind inside out, and all she could find was guilt, grief, and longing.”

Dorothy feels the heat rise in her face, and ducks her head to conceal it. _Longing_.

“So here you are,” says Ozma, her voice artificially bright. “Filthy,” she adds after a beat, and when Dorothy looks up she can see the queen is smiling hopefully. “Can I interest you in a bath? I’d brag about our running water, but apparently your mother was responsible for designing the system so I don’t imagine you’d be as impressed as most.”

A burble of laughter escapes Dorothy’s lips before she can help it. “A bath sounds amazing,” she admits. Underneath Lucas’ coat she’s crusted with dirt and sweat from three days travel, her hair snarled and jeans virtually unrecognisable under the mud.

Ozma clears her throat uncomfortably. “I’m afraid your attire also marks you as an outsider,” she says. “We’d have a better chance of keeping your identity a secret if you were wearing something a little less out of the ordinary.” She grimaces. “Sorry.”

“Uh,” says Dorothy, “that’s fine. But I didn’t, um, think to pack a dress.”

“I think I can spare one or two.” Ozma’s grin widens, and she runs her eyes speculatively over Dorothy’s lean curves, “You should fill them out just fine.”

***

By the time Dorothy climbs the spiral staircase up to her readied rooms in the East Wing tower she’s dead on her feet. The stone steps seem to go on forever, and she wonders if she might be a little bit delirious from exhaustion when she finally reaches the heavy wooden door at the top and pushes it open.

A lumpy-looking bed sits in the middle of the room, high enough off the ground to need the little set of stairs tucked up next to the headboard. There’s a basin and jug sitting on the top of a set of drawers, a narrow wardrobe, and a sweet-smelling rush mat on the floor. The window is shuttered tight against the cold night air, and the only illumination comes from an old-fashioned oil lamp next to the bed. Whatever technological marvels Jane had introduced to the Palace of Ev, they obviously hadn’t reached quite this far.

Dorothy goes to put the neatly folded stack of dresses in her arms away in the wardrobe, but her heart nearly leaps out of her throat when she rounds the bed and nearly trips over Lucas’ prone body. He’s propped up against the wall with his long legs spread out in front of him, and Toto sprawled next to him with his big head in Lucas’ lap. He looks much younger and defenceless with his face in repose; his piercing grey gaze shuttered, and scarred fingers slack in Toto’s fur.

She would like more time to study his face, but her gasp has given her away to Toto. As the big dog lumbers to his feet, those grey eyes open and fasten on her immediately.

“What are you doing on the floor?” She’s whispering, though she doesn’t know why.

“Waiting for you,” he replies, his voice husky with sleep. He struggles upright, looking disoriented and bleary eyed. “I needed to know you were safe. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

She looks behind her, at the closed-fast door. “The queen put a guard at the foot of the tower.”

He nods once, and seems to shake off a little of his lethargy. “That’s good. A tower room like this, it’s more easily defensible.” Reaching down, he picks his sword up off the ground and fastens it around his waist. “I’ll go now. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

As he moves past her she puts her hand up to stop him. Under her palm she can feel the heat coming off his skin. “Would you stay?” She feels his breath hitch, and when she looks up he’s staring at her with an inscrutable expression. “Please?” she adds.

He opens his mouth, but whatever he was going to say dies on his lips and he just nods again, and goes to unbuckle his sword as she opens the wardrobe and places the stack of dresses on an empty shelf.

Her fingers are clumsy on the knot that’s keeping her felted wool robe closed, but when she turns around again he’s still standing in the middle of the room with an uncertain look on his face.

“Did you want me to…?” He gestures to the door, his voice tapering off.

She just shakes her head, turns the lamp down until the flame flickers out, and climbs the little set of steps next to the bed. It’s as soft as a pile of quilts and she can’t restrain her quiet groan of pleasure as she tucks her bare feet between cool sheets and pats the mattress beside her. “You’ve got to be at least as exhausted as I am.”

In the darkness she can see his eyes dart from her to the door, and for a moment she’s certain he’s going to bolt, but eventually he toes off his boots and climbs up to lay down beside her. He holds himself stiffly, careful not to touch her regardless of the layers of blankets between them.

The silence deepens, but there’s just enough light for Dorothy to see that Lucas has his eyes open, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. When she says his name he turns his face to look at her. “Why didn’t you tell them who you were?” she asks him.

He’s quiet, and for a while she thinks that maybe he’s not going to answer her, but eventually he sighs.

“I wasn’t sure I was still deserving of the name you’d given me,” he says. “And I didn’t want anything of the man I’d been before then.”

_Guilt. Grief. Longing._

It doesn’t take the magic of Mistress West, Vessel of Truth and Solace, to tell Dorothy what she already knows.

He’s Lucas.

And he won't hurt her.   


  



	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorothy begins her training while Lucas rediscovers a new friend...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's unforgivable how long this chapter has taken. Mea culpa. I'll try to get the next one out a bit faster, I hope you're all still with me.

"Again."

West's voice rings out, cutting through the fatigue that's clouding Dorothy's head. She casts a glance at Ozma who gives her a weary grin and shakes a sweat-damp curl out of her eyes.

The room they've commandeered for the purpose of training is windowless, and the tall ceilings are lost in a fug of magic. After five hours the air itself is crackling, the lit candles doing less to illuminate the room than the roiling mass of smoke that's heaving over their heads.

The feeling of exhilaration that usually accompanies the gauntlets has gradually succumbed to exhaustion, and at this point Dorothy wants nothing more than to climb the interminable spiral of stairs up to her room in the east wing tower and tumble into the suffocating softness of the tick mattress.

She'd woken up that morning, stiff and sore and utterly alone; the covers on the bed cold when she ran her palm over them seeking some hint of how long Lucas had been gone. It didn't escape her attention that she'd slept through the night - the first time in weeks that she's done so.

"When you're perfectly ready."

West is impatient, and Dorothy mutters "Sorry" as she corrals the energy to draw on the power within.

She can sense Ozma's magic like a fizzing live wire on the edge of her awareness. It's a little maddening: like a ringing sound in her ear, or one of those magic eye pictures that disappears the harder she tries to look at it. Her own magic is as slippery as an eel, writhing like a living thing as she tries to weave it into the fabric of Ozma's steady flow of power.

"Why is this so much easier for you?" she asks the queen through gritted teeth.

Ozma shrugs blithely, "Practice?"

"Concentrate!" snaps West peevishly, but it's too late.

Dorothy feels the thread of her magic stutter before it begins to fray and within a breath the careful structure she's built collapses in on itself.

" _Fuck_."

It's harder than she could have imagined, marrying the power in the gauntlets with Ozma's spells. Somewhere at the back of her consciousness she can feel the connection that the magic wants to make, but the two streams slip against each other like opposing magnets.

Dorothy turns on West with frustration, "This isn't going to work."

The witch returns her look with a glare, "You're too distracted," she retorts. "This is basic magic, _children's_ magic." She lifts her arms theatrically, her sleeves billowing in the stale air. “ _Again_!"

"You start," says Ozma, gently. "Imagine yourself somewhere safe, somewhere sound. Build from there."

So - like she did back in Kansas, like she has countless times today - Dorothy closes her eyes and tries to find the still centre at the heart of herself.

She imagines herself sitting cross-legged in the center of her bed at home, with the sound of Aunt Em bustling around somewhere behind the closed door and the gentle warmth of the afternoon sun on the back of her neck.

Home.

It's the wellspring that she needs to draw her power from. The grounding place, the eye of the tornado.

In her minds eye she reaches down to touch the blanket that she can feel tickling the backs of her thighs, but as soon as her fingertips encounter the coarse weave something twists within her and she's suddenly somewhere else entirely.

The rough fibres under her palm become soft and springy, and when she cards her fingers through them she can feel the rise of fall of his breath. The warmth of the sun solidifies into the weight of his arm around her shoulders, and with her ear pressed to his chest she can hear the steady thump of his heart as it slows.

_somewhere safe. somewhere sound._

She doesn't have to hear Ozma's quiet intake of breath to know that something's different this time; the stream of magic she can feel pouring out of her is steady and strong. Trying not to overthink what she's doing, she feeds the flow of power the memory of those quiet moments she spent with Lucas in the farmhouse, _after_ : The sweat cooling on the back of her neck, the residual ache that she can feel between her thighs and the sated lethargy stealing through her limbs.

It ignites something dark that throbs deep and low in her belly, and she feeds this to the magic too.

The part of her mind that's still in the room registers the sound of rustling silk as Ozma shifts closer. A slim, cool hand slides into her own, and Dorothy can sense the queen mustering her own magic.

"Now," says West, her voice pitched low and seductive.

And finally, _finally_ , she feels it. It's like two plucked strings that have been resonating at different frequencies coming together into a harmony. She can feel Ozma's fingers tighten around her own and, with an almost physical sensation of release; the sundered halves of East's magic nudge up against each other and catch.

Dorothy opens her eyes and it's right there: a shifting tendril of power that looks like nothing more than a slow-moving twister, red and gold sparks spiralling up into the roiling mass of magic over their heads.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees the queen throw her an exhilarated grin, saying "Do it."

With a laugh Dorothy tosses her head back and lets the power go, flinging it up and into the sky.

There's a crack, a sudden boom, and the cloud of magic over their heads heaves. Then, abruptly, it collapses into itself and a moment later it begins to rain, _hard_ , drops bouncing off the parquetry floor.

In an instant Dorothy is soaked through to the skin with an equally drenched Ozma crowing triumphantly beside her. She turns her face to the ceiling and lets the rain wash the perspiration from her skin.

West looks as disgruntled as a wet cat in her sodden robes, and as the rain slows to stop she drawls, "Congratulations. You made the Beast Forever damp," but there's pride there too, and no small measure of affection when she looks at Ozma.

Transferring her green-eyed gaze to Dorothy the witch’s jaw tightens. “Your instincts are good. Stop wasting time, and start following them.”

She claps her hands together and as the sound reverberates around the room the puddles on the floor start to shiver violently until they frizzle away like drops of water on a hot skillet.

“Now,” says West. “Again.”

***

It takes seven rounds before an opponent finally manages to best Lucas in the training yards, laying him out on the packed earth with a blunt sparring sword pressed against the thundering pulse at Lucas’ throat.

The man is breathing heavily from exertion, but he can’t keep the grin from his face as he extends a hand to help Lucas to his feet.

“Well fought,” Lucas tells him, reaching down to where his own sword lays in the dust. His wrist is still smarting from where the other man had cracked the flat of his blade against the bone. “You’ll have to show me that grapple again.” He grimaces. “Maybe a bit slower next time.”

The other man is half a head shorter than Lucas and slight to boot, but he is as quick as he is fierce. For a moment Lucas wonders whether his moves can be taught to Dorothy, but dismisses the notion immediately. She’ll fight with the gauntlets or not at all; he doesn’t want to give her an excuse not to use the most formidable weapon in her arsenal, whatever the circumstance.

“You’re part of the Quadling regiment, is that right?”

“Yes sir.”

Quadling Country lies south of Emerald City, and they have no loyalties to Glinda or West, nor any scores to settle with the so-called ‘murderer’ of East. They’re new to Ev, Lucas knows, sent up by Mother South to help with the war effort. He’s unlikely to find a better candidate.

He watches the soldier unstrap his leather vambraces with a brisk, practiced movement, and resolves to speak to the man’s superior officer. As loath as he is to trust Dorothy’s safety to another he needs a second pair of eyes to watch over her when he cannot.

He finds Ev’s palace guards foppish and ineffectual in their elaborate uniforms and ridiculous plumed hats. The one stationed at the foot of the stairs to Dorothy’s tower room had been half-asleep when Lucas had startled him from behind, and his cold fury that the man hadn’t thought to check her quarters the night before was enough to galvanise Ozma into permitting him to assign Dorothy a guard of his own choosing.

The queen had looked at him curiously when he’d declared his intention to move his pallet and scant belongings from the barracks to the cramped landing at the top of the tower stairs but she’d seemed to realise the futility of refusing.

He feels better knowing that there’s two lines of defence between would-be attackers and Dorothy; better still knowing that this clever and nimble Quadling soldier will be one of them.

The sun is low in the sky, and he’s eager to return to the palace, but he takes the long route back through the slums. _Everyone_ , Jack had said, and Lucas wants to know exactly who “everyone” is.

Ev is a prosperous city, and even here in the slums its citizens are rugged up in furs and heavy wool against the cold. It’s a far cry from the desperate refugees on their doorsteps, most of who fled their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs. They seem satisfied enough, but on closer inspection it’s easy to see the shadows under their eyes, the suspicious looks they give their neighbours.

They’re still recovering from the fallout from the Wizard’s violent coup, and the shock loss of their beloved - if odd - princess. They hadn’t welcomed Ozma’s arrival, coming as it did with regiments of hungry soldiers who obliterated the city’s food stores, and a phalanx of tattered half-mad witches. Ev is a tinderbox just waiting for the right match to be struck, and Lucas knows that news of Dorothy’s arrival could be just the thing to set off a riot.

“Roan.”

The whispered voice is rough and desperate, and Lucas thinks he’s imagined it until it comes again. “Roan.”

Looking around he spots the figure clinging to the wall of a narrow alley on his right. Whoever it is, they’re taking care to conceal themselves in the anonymity of the shadows.

Drawing his dagger smoothly from the sheath at his hip Lucas approaches. “That’s not my-“ He breaks off.

It’s Eamonn.

His cheeks are sunken and grey, the ragged cloak around his shoulders is grimy with dirt, but he is still, unmistakably, Lucas’ former captain.

“It _is_ you.” The older man reaches out to grab his arm. “Do you know me? Roan, _do you know me_?”

Bewildered, Lucas says “Eamonn? What happened to you?”

At the sound of his name Eamonn crumples, bringing filthy hands up to cover his face as it contorts into ugly tears.

Appalled, Lucas hauls him to his feet and draws him further into the alley, propping him up against the brick wall. “What is it? Where’s Maeve? Where is your family?”

“Gone,” sobs Eamonn. “All gone. Lost to me.” His head hangs low, snarled hair falling forward to conceal his face, but Lucas can hear his breath coming wetly as he struggles to recover himself.

Finally he lifts his head and looks at Lucas, his eyes bloodshot. “I did terrible things. Cowardly things.”

Lucas feels a wave of pity wash through him. “You couldn’t have stopped the Beast Forever,” he says gently.

“Not the Beast,” says Eamonn. “The queen. She took them from me. To punish me for what I did during the war.”

“What?” Lucas’ confusion deepens. To punish one for another’s crime… he would believe it of the Witches – would even _expect_ it of Glinda – but not from Ozma. The queen can be impatient and reckless, but he’s never seen her be cruel and she loves her citizens far too dearly to ever cause them harm. She’d pardoned the surviving members of the Wizard’s Guard in the aftermath of the Beast’s arrival. Whatever Eamonn had done to provoke her ire must have been severe indeed.

“I made her an orphan, Roan.”

Lucas stares at him in horror, backing away to the other side of the narrow alleyway. “No...”

“I did.” Eamonn looks down at his hands as if expecting to still see the blood-stained blade clutched in his fingers. “I slaughtered her family to save my own life. I was young and frightened. But-“ he shakes his head, “that’s no excuse.”

“Eamonn...”

“The queen’s retribution was fierce,” Eamonn continues. “She took the knowledge of me from my family and made me nothing, not even a faded memory. Indra looked on me as a stranger... my beautiful daughter. Perhaps it’s better this way.” His eyes are distant. “My shame cannot reflect upon them if I don’t exist...” He looks up at Lucas hopefully. “But I would give my life to know they were safe.”

It’s probably treason. If what Eamonn has said is true - if he _had_ wielded the sword that had spilled her parent’s lifeblood - then Ozma should have had him executed the moment she took the city.

Any assistance given to such a traitor to the throne would not be looked on favourably, but Lucas remembers the man who stayed awake with him on countless nights over dying campfire embers. The wonderment and love in his voice when he spoke of his family.

And he remembers Indra running to meet her father at the door, her face alight with joy; how, before he’d even removed his cloak, Eamonn would fall to his knees to let his son Tomas loop skinny arms around his neck.

And above all, he remembers how it felt to _not_ remember, and he wonders if they feel the grasping blankness in their minds as keenly as he had when he’d sacrificed everything that mattered to pursue the knowledge that Glinda’s spell had locked away from him.

“Come with me,” he says finally. “We need to find you somewhere safe to stay.”

***

Dorothy chases the last remaining peas around the plate with her oddly shaped fork and sighs, shifting restlessly in her seat.

Across the table, Jack lifts his eyes and offers her a wan smile. He’d been waiting outside the training room when they finally finished for the day, and Dorothy had felt Ozma flinch as he’d lurched painfully to his feet to greet them. She wonders again how he’d sustained the injuries she’d glimpsed the day before, and how it relates to the uneasy tension she can sense between the two friends.

The queen sits at the head of the long table. Or... king? It had been Tip who’d returned from bathing, not Ozma, and he’d given West a defiant scowl when the witch had raised a disapproving eyebrow at his appearance.

If his intention had been to set Jack at ease it certainly hasn’t worked; the tension thrums through the room like living force. West stares at Tip through narrowed eyes, Tip watches Jack like a starving dog, and Jack seems hypnotised by his plate as he mechanically forks food into his mouth.

Dorothy shifts again, and looks at the empty place setting on her left. _where is he_?

She knew Lucas had his own duties to attend to, but in spite of herself she’d been disappointed not to find him waiting outside the training room as Jack had been. There was no sign that he’d ever returned to her quarters when she climbed the stairs to prepare for dinner; the bed they’d shared the night before neatly made and undisturbed.

She’d pushed him too far, forcing him to sleep beside her. His discomfort had poured off him in waves, but she’d been greedy and needful, and he couldn’t deny her when she’d asked.

He’d never been particularly good at telling her no.

She’s just convinced herself that he’s not coming when a footman opens the door to the dining room and he strides in.

Dorothy hears West say, “Thank fuck” under her breath, and even Tip looks relieved to have another guest to break up the awkward tension.

Lucas takes his seat next to Dorothy and gives her a fleeting smile before turning his attention to the Tip. “I’m sorry I’m late. I had to visit the camps.”

He doesn’t seem surprised to see the skinny-shouldered boy sitting at the head of the table, and Dorothy wonders how many people are permitted to see this side of Oz’s ruler.

“The camps?” queries Tip. “Is everything all right?”

Lucas shrugs. “As good as can be expected. We’re starting to see refugees from as far away as Burzee.”

“That far south?” His mouth twists unhappily, and he looks at West. “Have you-?”

“I can’t contact her,” snaps West. “And Glinda claims she doesn’t know where she is either.”

Dorothy’s brow furrows. “Who?”

“My mother,” says West peevishly. “The cardinal witch of the south.”

“There’s _another_ of you lot?” says Dorothy. “Great.”

Tip’s brow is furrowed. “What were you looking for in the camps?”

Lucas drops his gaze, concentrating on the plate in front of him. Dorothy can see the tightness in his shoulders, but when he replies his voice is even. “I’m looking for a family I knew back in Emerald City. A mother and two children: a girl around your age and a boy of twelve.”

West looks at him sharply, and he thinks _careful, careful._

“You know they’re alive?” asks Tip.

“I hope so. Their father was lost during the battle.”

West’s eyes narrow and she opens her mouth to speak, but before she can get a word out Jack drops his fork and it clatters noisily against the plate.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly, dragging his napkin over the gravy that’s now spattering the surface of the table. His left elbow catches one of the delicate crystal goblets and sends it flying. It’s mercifully empty, but shatters on impact with the floor. “I’m sorry!” Jack says again, his voice rising with panic.

Dorothy is on her feet immediately, shooing Jack away from where he’s trying to pick up the bigger shards of glass with gloved fingers. This close to him she can hear a mechanical whine, the whisper-quiet hum of gears over his laboured breathing, and with dawning horror she realises what it was that she’d glimpsed through his open collar the day before.

She puts a hand on his wrist, it’s solid – _too_ solid – under the cuff of his jacket, and he stills immediately, raising his eyes to meet hers.

“Who did this to you?” she says, and Jacks stares at her bewildered.

“Your mother,” he replies, as if it’s obvious.

***

Dorothy is quiet as she and Lucas climb the stairs to her room, and he can tell that her mind is on the story Jack has told her – that she’s piecing it together with what little she knows about Jane.

It’s not magic, she’d told them curtly as Jack fastened the buttons on his jerkin, hiding his clockwork heart away again. Her mother wasn’t a _witch_ she was an scientist. What she’d done to Jack was a rudimentary version of something from her own world.

Jack had looked hopeful at this, had explained that his prosthetic limbs had been damaged during the battle for Ev; if this was something from her world, could Dorothy help him? Could she– he’d stalled a moment, had thrown a glance at Tip and lowered his voice. _Could she fix something that Jane had built_?

But she’d shaken her head. She was a healer, and Jack needed an engineer. She could help soothe the angry webbing of scars where his pale flesh met metal, but the mechanical workings of his limbs was a mystery to her. They needed Jane.

Leaving the dining room, Lucas had been gratified to see the Quadling soldier - Micah - alert and waiting for them. The other man’s expression had betrayed no recognition when Lucas had introduced Dorothy by name, but his eyes had sharpened with understanding when Lucas left him at the foot of the tower to follow her up the steps.

Lucas hopes the man is as taciturn as he appears, or the rumour that a captain of the Queensguard is bedding down with the Queen’s new companion will spread through the camp like wildfire.

The Beast has his spies, and so does Glinda, and it would have been far wiser for him to keep his distance once he’d delivered Dorothy safely to Ev; but as he’d watched her sleeping beside him he’d discovered that he... couldn’t. It wasn’t just the promise that he’d made to her aunt, or the knowledge that somehow, perhaps undeservedly, he’d managed to regain her trust. He’d felt the warmth of her body across the scant inches of space that he hadn’t dared to cross, and it had felt like he’d regained a lost limb.

The narrow stairwell is steep, and Dorothy has her skirts clutched in her fists to prevent them from tripping her as she climbs. She’s wearing soft-soled slippers that make a scuffing noise on the stone steps, and he finds his eyes drawn again and again to her narrow ankles. He’s possessed with a mad urge to reach out and see if he can span them with his grasp. He wrenches his gaze away, fastens it instead on the row of tiny buttons that trace the straight line of her back, and when his fingers start itching to twitch them from their buttonholes he turns his eyes to the ground and watches his own feet instead.

He’s concentrating so hard on the worn leather of his boots that he doesn’t realise they’ve reached the landing until she stops abruptly with an “Oh,” and he nearly ploughs into her back. He puts a hand on her hip to steady himself, then snatches it back as if burned.

She’s looking at the pallet that he set up after returning from the training yards, his pack of belongings tucked neatly away in the corner. When she turns to look back at him Lucas feels the heat rise in his face.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I should have asked.” He gestures weakly at the bed roll. “I trust Micah, but I just... I wouldn’t be able to sleep back at the barracks. Without knowing that you’re–” _close._ “That you’re safe.”

Dorothy’s gaze softens, and she offers him a tentative smile. “Thank you,” she says.

It’s not the easy camaraderie that they once shared, but after she’s bid him goodnight and he’s lying awake in the darkness, he thinks to himself that there’s something more truthful in what they have now.

Under the burden of his lost memory she’d been a safe haven – the one constant in an uncertain world. Was it any wonder that he’d lost his heart so completely when she was everything he knew, everything he wanted?

What he feels for her now is more complex. He has his responsibilities, his duties to the Queen, the soldiers under his command, even friends. She’s not _everything_. Not anymore. But she’s brave to the point of recklessness, and kinder than anyone he’s known. He hasn’t been able to forget the gentleness of her hands any more than he’s been able to forget the taste of her skin, and he knows that if she ever made him the same offer that she had back in that farmhouse outside Gillikin he wouldn’t hesitate.

He opens his eyes to the blackness, and discovers that there’s a warm glow emanating from around the edges of the door to Dorothy’s room. It fades a little as he watches, then brightens again, glittering a little like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight.

He sighs, and getting to his feet goes to open the door.

She doesn’t notice his presence at first, sitting cross-legged in the centre of the bed with her back to the door. Her shift is thin enough that he can make out the lines of her body against the glow of magic as she does something complicated with her hands and the ball of light brightens before her.

“You should be sleeping,” he says gruffly, and she startles, whipping her head around to look at him.

“So should you,” she counters, and her lips quirk into a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

He takes a few steps into the room and closes the door after him. The orb that she’s manifested is unsteady, the light throwing long, dancing shadows around the room. As he approaches the bed she turns her attention back to it and as he watches, the edges firm up until it looks solid enough to touch. He knows better than to try.

“It doesn’t come naturally to me,” she says, not looking at him.

“Nor should it,” he replies. “You’re not a witch.”

“Neither is Ozma, but she doesn’t struggle like I do.”

The ball of magic is wobbling again, sending shivery shadows racing around the walls.

“Give it time,” he says.

The light continues to shudder, growing in intensity until it suddenly winks out of existence, leaving Lucas blinking bright spots out of his eyes. Dorothy’s shoulders are slumped, and she stares at her hands as the gauntlets recede into her skin.

“I haven’t _got_ time,” she says, frustrated. “Every minute is another one that Jane’s a prisoner of that _thing_. Every minute more people are getting hurt, or disappearing.” She looks fierce. “Glinda was right - the best thing would be for Ozma to claim the gauntlets for her own. You might all stand a chance then.”

His heart stutters for a moment then picks up again, hammering hard against his ribs. “The gauntlets are part of you. To claim them she’d have to kill you.”

Dorothy shrugs morosely. “Even so,” she says.

He’s beside her in a few swift steps, his hands covering hers. “Don’t say that,” he says roughly. “Don’t even think it.”

Her wrists twist until her palms meet his, and she curls her cool fingers around his hands. Her eyes are dark in her face when she lifts her gaze to his, her lips parted, and he’s close enough to imagine that he feels the warmth of her breath on his skin.

“Can I stay tonight?” he says, the words escaping his mouth in a rush. He flushes, feeling like a blundering fool. “I mean, if you didn’t mind.”

She looks at him searchingly for a moment, her forehead creased into a frown; then, to his surprise, she nods. “Yes. Of course.”

Scooting over from the centre of the bed she draws the blankets away, baring a space on the mattress beside her.

This time he doesn’t hesitate, sliding in between the sheets and letting his head drop back against the pillows as she tugs the covers back up over the two of them.

He only realises he’s holding his breath when she lifts his arm up and over her own shoulders so that she can press herself to his side, and it leaves his lungs in a surprised huff.

“I’m cold,” she says, by way of explanation; so he tightens his arm around her, drawing her further into his warmth, and trying not to think about how easily she fits into the spaces of his body.

They’d lain like this in the forest, he realises, with Sylvie sleeping peacefully on the other side of the dying campfire. He’d been cold from the snow, uncomfortable with his back pressed against the frozen earth, and conflicted about leaving a clue about his identity behind. Yet, lying there with her in his arms and the taste of her on his lips ... he couldn’t remember ever being happier.

He wonders if she’s thinking of the same night when she presses her face into his shoulder and mumbles, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For wanting me here,” she says.

 _I’ll always want you,_ he wants to say, but he knows that’s not what she means, so instead he whispers, “Sleep,” and after a while, they do.

_***_


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life, huh?  
> Thank you to everyone for being so patient, writing has been like squeezing blood from a stone lately, but your comments and reviews are life-affirming. Here’s a little chapter to keep you going - I promise the next one isn’t months away. (Possibly I need a beta reader to keep me honest and make sure I’m not actually turning out the garbage that my brain thinks I am)  
> Also: Where’s Toto? Who knows? Sure as hell not me.

Somewhere in the castle something is screaming.

Jane presses her ear to the heavy oak door, but she still can’t quite make it out. It could be a man or a woman. Even an animal. It could be _him_ , it wouldn’t be the first time.

He’s in pain, all the time. She sees it in the eyes, in the careful way he moves. She wonders if it’s made him mad, if it’s why he does the things he does. She knows how to mask pain, but not how to treat it, and she doesn’t think he’d let her close enough to try.

The sounds of the cries are fading and she pushes harder against the wood, chasing the sound, trying to make sense of it. If it’s him she’ll have a few hours before he comes for her. If it’s not. Well. She’s getting better at scrubbing the bloodstains from stone flagstones.

She steps back from the door and wishes for the umpteenth time for a crack, a window, any kind of connection to the outside world. She can’t tell whether it’s day or night, her sense of time has been all but obliterated since he locked her here in this windowless room. She’s either here, or she’s _under_ \- down with the machines, and the stink of unwashed bodies, and the weight of tonnes of cold earth over her head.

She only had herself to blame, he’d told her. He keeps her alive to _maintain_ the machines, not build _new ones_.

In the beginning he’d given her full rein to explore the city, confident there was no way in or out. He’d locked the gates on the rest of the world, and while the businesses and abandoned houses had been devoid of life there was plenty of hardware to keep her busy.

It hadn’t been difficult to cobble together a drone out the supplies she’d scavenged; after all, she’d been the one to engineer the Wizard’s aerial spies in the first place. It was rough and rudimentary, lacking the range and capabilities of her former invention, but it avoided Roquat’s attention. For a time.

She’d seen him snatch it from the air, flinging it to the ground outside the walls where it had lain like a broken bird.

He’d accused her of attempting escape, of abandoning the people who slaved away under the earth. He’d locked her away then, away from the sun and the sky and the twinned moons that have become as familiar to her as the single one she was born under.

It had been worth it though.

He hadn’t known it at the time, but the damage had been done. She’d sent the queen’s emissary through the vortex chamber hours just before.

She wonders if the soldier had made it to Kansas safely; if he’d managed to find the weapon they needed, if he’d made it back. She hopes she gets to see him again before the end, so that she can ask him about Dorothy.

***

It’s cold and dark in the cellar, and the mound of hessian sacks that serves as Eamonn’s bed stinks of onions, but it’s dry and it’s quiet and even if he’s not _safe_ at least he’s clean, and his belly is more full than it’s been in months.

He doesn’t know how much it had cost Roan, what currency he’d used to bribe the pinch-mouthed woman who’d brought him down here, what lies he’d told her to explain his presence. She’d flung the door shut after Eamonn, leaving him to stumble down the stairs in darkness, but he hadn’t heard the sound of a key scraping in the lock so he assumes he’s not a prisoner.

He can hear the sounds of the city rousing above his head; a rumble of carts, and the muffled shouts of the vendors setting up their market stalls.

It makes him think of home, of Maeve and the children. He has to believe that they’re alive, even if they’re lost to him; the alternative is just too terrible to contemplate.

He’d seen the thing that had passed overhead as he’d stumbled out of the city, fleeing the screeching witches and the blank stares of his family. It was a leathery winged horror, but Roan promised that by the time the gates had been slammed shut, hundreds, maybe thousands of people had evacuated.

He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Roan finds them. He made Maeve fall in love with him once before. Maybe....? He dismisses the thought as soon as it comes to him. They deserve more than who he is, more than the legacy that he bears.

Besides, he’s done with living a lie. The shame of what he’d done during the uprising had eaten him alive. His son had looked on him as a hero, his wife thought he was a good man, and the whole time he’d hidden the sickening knowledge of what he’d been capable of, what he’d done in his cowardice.

Roan will find them, and Eamonn will make sure they’re safe, and then he’ll leave and he’ll do something _good_. Something _worthy_. He’d been a good soldier. And the beast was only one creature. Perhaps he would succeed where armies had not. And if he died, it would be a death worthy of the man his family believed him to be.

There’s a distant growl of thunder, and Eamonn turns his face to the ceiling curiously as he realises that it’s not passing, that it’s growing closer. Then it’s on top of him, and he can make out the individual footsteps, the rapid slap of feet on cobblestone, and the shouts that make his blood run cold:

“ _Get the traitor!”_

***

There’s a bright band of sunlight coming through the slats covering the window, and when Dorothy opens her eyes the the light dazzles her. She squeezes her eyes tight against the intrusion, goes to bury her face her face in the feathered softness of her pillow, and that’s when her brain catches up with her and she realises that she’s not alone in the bed _._

_Lucas._

She can tell by the steady breaths stirring the fine hairs on the back of her neck that he’s still fast asleep, his arm a warm weight around her waist. She wants to curl into his heat like a cat, roll her hips against him and feel his grasp tighten around her. It would be easy, so easy to arch back until his lips met the skin at the top of her spine. He’d welcome it, she thinks. Might even turn her over, press her further into the mattress, put his mouth to her throat and taste her pulse.

The thought sends a sharp bolt of arousal through her and she shifts restlessly, the rustling of the sheets obscenely loud in the early morning silence.

Lucas tenses, his breath stilling against the nape of her neck, and she knows he’s awake. He goes to draw his arm back from her waist, but before he can Dorothy slides her hand down his forearm and weaves her fingers into his own. She can feel his scarred knuckles under her palm.

His voice is a rumble in her ear. “I’m s–”

“Don’t you dare apologise.” When he doesn’t reply she releases his hand and rolls over onto her back to look at him. “If I didn’t want you here you wouldn’t _be_ here, ok?”

He’s looking at her gravely, and a muscle ticks in his cheek as his gaze flits between her eyes and then – so quickly that she almost misses it – to her lips. Suddenly nervous she licks them and watches as his throat bobs. “Knock knock.”

His eyebrows twitch in surprise but the corner of his mouth curves up in a smile. “Who’s there?”

The fact that he remembers sends a wave of affection flooding through her and she shifts again, turning to face him properly. “Howard. Now ask me ‘Howard who’.”

“Howard who?”

She can’t help the wide grin that’s spreading across her face. “Howard you like to bring me some breakfast?”

There’s a beat and for a moment she thinks he doesn’t get it, but then a snort of laughter escapes him and he flops over onto his back, the movement jostling her nearer until their shoulders are touching again. “Dorothy, that’s terrible.”

She’s laughing too, and it feels _so good_ that she’s a little worried she might start crying.

Had she really missed him this much? She’s always been so careful with her heart, refusing to let anyone get close; how had he managed to get so far under her skin without her noticing?

As the laughter fades she turns her head to look at him and finds him facing her already. His expression is soft and he keeps his eyes on her as she bring her hand up to his face and traces the scar carved into his cheekbone.

She lets her fingertips trail lower, along the full curve of his lower lip, and he flinches, bringing his own hand up quickly and encircling her wrist with long fingers.

“Don’t,” he warns, his voice low and rough.

She pauses, her heart beating an uncomfortable tattoo in her breast. “Why not?”

He closes his eyes, but he can’t disguise the want in his face, and he’s holding himself so still that he’s almost vibrating with it. Out of the corner of her eye she sees his free hand clench twice.

“I can’t–” he grinds out, his voice pleading, but before he can continue there’s a brisk knock at the door.

“Sir!”

Lucas freezes, then lurches out of the bed, hastily tucking his shirt into the soft breeches he wore to bed. “What is it?” he calls, looking back over his shoulder at Dorothy. She pushes herself up to sit up against the headboard, and draws the covers tighter over her lap.

He cracks the door open, and she sees Micah’s gaze flick to her briefly on the bed before the solider looks back at Lucas, his face drawn and tense.

“There’s been a riot in the south-west quarter of the city,” he says. “They’ve cornered a man they’re calling traitor and they’re threatening to hang him.”

Lucas blanches. “In the south-west quarter?” he asks urgently. “What name?”

Micah shakes his head and shrugs.

Lucas sucks in a breath, looking torn, then turns to Dorothy. She’s already half out of the bed, wrapping the wool robe around her shoulders and cinching the belt tight around her waist. She pushes the hair out of her face and gives him an impatient look. “I’m fine. I can get myself to training.”

“I’ll see her safely there sir,” says Micah.

Lucas’ jaw tightens, “Stay with her until the Queen arrives. And Mistress West.” He looks at her again, seems about to add something, then shakes his head and follows the soldier out the door, closing it softly behind him.

***

Dorothy doesn’t know if it’s residual magic from the day before or purely her imagination, but the air seems heavier and more oppressive the closer they get to the training room. She hates it, she thinks, but there’s a small part of her that’s keen to get going, to feel that heady connection to the power again.

Beside her Micah yawns hugely, stifling it unsuccessfully behind a mailed fist, and it occurs to her that he’s been awake for hours, standing guard while she and Lucas slept curled around each other in the tower room far above him.

“You should go get some rest,” she tells him.

He shakes his head decisively. “I’ll wait until the captain returns,” he says.

She’s about to reply when the door swings open seemingly of its own accord, and she hears the cut-glass tones of Glinda’s cold voice within.

“You’re _late._ ”

_Fuck._

Dorothy exchanges a glance with Micah before she peers around the door to see Glinda’s straight, slim figure standing in the middle of the dimly lit room. Alone.

She makes a show of looking around the empty room. “Where’s Ozma?” she asks rudely, putting a bit of extra insolence in her voice.

Her face darkening with anger, Glinda advances on Dorothy with one smooth step before she seems to think better of it and stops, straightening her already impossibly straight back. “The queen” – she makes it sound like an expletive – “will not be joining us.” She smiles coldly. “After the miserable display yesterday it was obvious to everyone concerned that you would benefit from some one-on-one training.”

Dorothy feels a prickle of rage and embarrassment crawling over her skin. She shoots Glinda a furious look. “From _you_?”

Glinda opens her hands placidly, presenting her white palms to the ceiling. “I am the best.”

The anger is sparking so strongly in her breast that Dorothy only registers that the gauntlets have emerged when Glinda’s eyes flick to them, a look of hunger flashing over her serene face.

Dorothy flexes her fingers maliciously and lets the light catch on the gold and rubies. “I defeated you in your own home. How good could you be?”

The barb finally penetrates Glinda’s implacable mask, and a moment later Dorothy finds herself skidding across the parquetry floor, the door slamming shut on Micah’s alarmed face.

“Go ahead and waste more time, little girl,” sneers Glinda. “I don’t care about your mother, or how many of you wretched mortals fall to the Beast while you engage in these little tantrums. I agreed to help because when the battle comes your incompetence will cost me more of my sisters, but until that moment I have _nothing_ _but time_.”

Micah’s hammering on the door, and Dorothy can hear his muffled voice shouting through the heavy wood. She fastens her gaze on Glinda until the witch purses her lips and with a complicated twitch of her fingers releases the paralysing hold she has on her legs.

“Stay or go,” says Glinda. “It makes no difference to me.”

Dorothy bites her lower lip and makes the decision.

“Teach me.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha. I can’t believe it’s taken my this long to get you another chapter. Thank you for being patient. I won’t promise the next one’s coming soon, but it’s definitely coming. I still don’t know where Toto is. Eating sausages in the kitchen probably.

Dorothy’s stomach twists with hunger, but she grits her teeth and pushes it to the back of her mind, concentrating instead on maintaining the glimmering ball of light that hangs, suspended, between her and the ivy-draped wall that’s been constructed in the middle of the courtyard.

The ivy is blackened in places, scorch marks staining the bricks, and the ground around the wall is blitzed clear of grass and foliage. It had been a pretty garden before they’d arrived– tiny pink and white flowers carpeting the ground, a wrought-iron bench under the shade of a drooping tree. The tree’s still there.

Sort of.

It looks like one of the photos of the Western Front that she remembers from her school textbooks, and the idea that she could be an instrument of war – as deadly and damaging as a bomb – is equal parts sobering and exhilarating.

She feels a trickle of sweat inch down her spine and ignores it. Her skin is itching and she ignores that too, feeding more power into the orb.

Glinda is a tall white presence at the corner of her eye. Dorothy’s not stupid enough to turn her back on the witch entirely, and while most of her attention is on feeding the gauntlets’ power into the ball, there’s a just little bit of her consciousness set aside, watching, waiting. Just in case the other woman decides to break this uneasy truce between them and make her move.

Not that she’s shown any inclination that she’s likely to do so, Dorothy admits grudgingly. Glinda has spent the better part of the day flinging vitriolic barbs at Dorothy, chastising her for every fumbled spell and lapse in attention, but she’s honouring her promise to Ozma, and Dorothy’s beginning to understand why the witches are sent to her for training and not to West.

She’s good. _Very_ good.

Dorothy feels the moment the magic flowing out of her reaches critical mass a heartbeat before Glinda opens her mouth to say, “strike,” and she’s already drawing it tight, binding it closer until the orb is almost to bright to look at.

It doesn’t feel like a wild thing anymore. It feels like a part of her, as easy to control as her own fist. She knows how to bend it to her will; how to shape it and direct it. The orb floats lazily in the air in front of her, and she admires it for a moment, this gorgeous, deadly manifestation of her power. Fastening her gaze on the garden wall, she brings back her arm and with a twist of her wrist she sends her magic ricocheting into the brickwork.

For a moment it seems like the world is holding its breath, then, as she watches, the wall implodes, crumbling into rubble and dust.

It’s spectacular. She thinks it’s one of the most beautiful things she thinks she’s ever seen: this slow-motion obliteration of something solid and standing with nothing more than her _will_.

The power coursing through her veins is singing with triumph. It feels good. _Better_ than good, and she’s already summoning another surge of magic, casting her eye around the courtyard for the next target into which she can unleash the destructive potential she carries.

Glinda’s smile looks more like a snarl and her voice is cold when she says, “Casting your weapon at a brick wall is one thing, but the Beast Forever is a living creature.”

Dorothy is still trying to unravel the meaning behind the witch’s words when Glinda twists her fingers in the air and a pocket of the world that didn’t exist a moment before unfolds to reveal a small figure dressed in white.

She’s older than Dorothy saw her last, taller, and the childish softness in her face is just beginning to melt away, revealing the young woman she’ll become. Her eyes are huge, but she doesn’t seem perturbed to find herself snatched from wherever she was to find herself in this courtyard garden. She looks first towards Glinda, then when the witch says nothing she transfers her gaze to Dorothy. There’s a crease between her brows that smoothes into something that looks like recognition, and her lips curl up into a shy smile.

“Hello, Dorothy,” she says, and her voice is high and sweet.

Sylvie.

The last time she’d laid eyes on the little girl she’d been pale and stained with her own blood. Struck down by a bullet from a weapon Dorothy herself had brought into the world. Seeing her now – whole and unharmed – is almost too much, and Dorothy can feel her knees buckling under her.

Sylvie takes a step towards her, but hesitates when Glinda snaps at her, a word that Dorothy doesn’t recognise.

“Strike,” says Glinda.

Dorothy stares at her. “Excuse me?” She glances at Sylvie standing uncertainly amongst the rubbled remains of the garden wall, then back at Glinda.

The witch’s expression is placid, but her eyes are burning as she waves a languid hand towards Sylvie. “ _Strike_.”

Dorothy’s breath is coming faster, and she can feel her agitation feeding into the ball of power. It’s already larger than before, shuddering in time with her hammering heart. “I don’t think so.”

“The beast wears the skin of a man,” snaps Glinda. “Living, breathing. You want to prove that you can do this, then you’ll need to unleash your power on something more than stone and mortar.”

She’s losing her grasp on the magic, it’s grown almost too big for her to control. She can feel it tugging at her, the almost irresistible urge to release it. She fights it. “It’ll kill her!”

Glinda eyes flash with triumph, and her slow-spreading smile fills Dorothy with the sinking feelingthat she’s somehow played straight into the other woman’s hands.

“Surely not,” Glinda says mildly. “Only a witch can kill a witch, isn’t that what you said? You were _very_ certain that your stolen magic posed no danger to my sisters or myself.”

“I don’t–“ Dorothy stammers.

“Did you murder my sister?”

Dorothy recoils, remembering the way the gunshot reverberated around the bare hills, the spray of blood, the open and accusing eyes. “No!”

“Then strike.”

Dorothy looks at Sylvie, and she can see the fear in her eyes as clearly as she can see the smug satisfaction in Glinda’s. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she promises, trying to force her voice to be low and calm.

It comes back to her then, the moment in the cold halls of Calcedon when she was flung into that white, barren cell. _It’s OK_ , she’d said, though she was reeling under Lucas’ inaction. _Everything’s going to be fine_.

Sylvie had shrieked her name, panicking as the guards had pried her fingers off the sleeve of Dorothy’s jacket, but she’s silent now.

“Stop wasting time,” snaps Glinda.

Dorothy rounds on her, suddenly incandescent with rage. “Fuck you,” she snarls, and that’s it, that’s all it takes. The thin thread of control she’s retained over herself is severed, and she sends her power hurtling towards Glinda, her mind a white hot mess of exultation and fury and _kill her kill her kill her_.

Glinda’s face is drawn tight with anger, but she doesn’t flinch. One moment the power is close enough to illuminate the sharp planes of her face then the next it simply winks out of existence and Dorothy finds herself suspended three feet off the ground, choking as an implacable force holds her there by her throat.

Glinda stalks closer, lowering Dorothy until her thrashing toes are brushing the ground and their faces are level. “You little fool,” she hisses, and the throttling pressure on Dorothy’s throat increases. “You could train for the rest of your miserable life, and I’d _still_ snuff you out like a candle.”

Distantly Dorothy can hear Sylvie crying, but it’s almost drowned out by the sound of her pulse thundering in her ears. She thinks about twisted silk, white sheets looped around that long, pale neck, and Lucas’ rough voice saying _you’ll have to kill me first_ and jolting her out of her maddened state.

Glinda smiles like she knows where Dorothy’s mind has gone. “You surprised me that night,” she says.“You won’t surprise me again.”

Dorothy’s vision is greying around the edges, and she can feel her consciousness slipping when a firm voice says, “That’s enough,” and she’s crumpling to the ground, blinking black spots from her eyes.

***

He’s suspected it for a while, but it’s not until he sees the fluttering edge of a black cloak disappearing between the walls of a narrow alley that Jack is certain. Someone in the palace is having him followed.

It’s not difficult to sneak out – Tip’s regular excursions into the slums around Jane’s old workshop prove that – but it’s harder when you’re not able-bodied, and instead of creeping down the crumbling stairs that wind their way down to the outskirts of the city you’re dependent on the discretion of the guard who operates the trolley that carves a path up the steep rise of the palace hill.

He wonders if it’s Ozma or West who’s responsible for the owner of that tattered cloak. West, he assumes. Ozma would send one of Ev’s gaudily-dressed guards, West would send a witch.

He straightens his aching shoulders against the dragging weight of his prosthetic arm and debates turning back to confront the spy. Decides not to.

He’s not doing anything wrong. No-one told him he couldn’t leave the palace, and the location of Jane’s workshop isn’t exactly a secret. He could be returning to collect supplies, for all they know, tools to help him repair his legs.

Ozma maintains a careful silence regarding his mechanical limbs, averting her eyes uncomfortably if his cuff slips or his knees lock up, she wouldn’t dream of upsetting the careful balance between them by addressing his injuries.

West, on the other hand. She looks at him with a combination of fascination and revulsion that Jack suspects has less to do with him, and more to do with the hungry way she watches Ozma when she thinks no-one is paying attention.

He supposes if he were in her shoes he would have himself followed, too.

The door to Jane’s workshop is stiff, and he shoves it hard with his shoulder, registering with resignation the dull thunk his arm makes against the wood.

Sometimes if it’s very early or very late, or if he’s three tankards into a good sulk he can feel his missing limbs twitching. Dorothy says it’s normal, but he thinks there’s nothing normal about him.

_Freak._

_Takes one to know one._

“Hi,” he calls out when he gets inside. He doesn’t think she can hear him, doesn’t even know if there’s enough of her left to hear, but he talks to her anyway because it makes him feel less alone.

He pushes open the great double doors to Jane’s workshop. “Sorry I’ve been gone,” he says. “I’ve been staying at the palace.”

It’s cold in the workshop. Colder still where she is, and he shivers even though he knows he can’t feel the frost that’s riming the glass over her beautiful, damaged face.

He settles painfully into the chair that he’s set up next to the bulky cylinder and smooths his palm over the metal. If he concentrates he can just feel the machinery humming.

Jane has put her in it before she’d gone to confront the Wizard. Cry. Cry-o-something she’d called it. To preserve what was left of her.

He’d been distraught, half-hysterical, and he thinks the only reason he remembers ‘cry’ was because at the time he’d thought it was cruelly apt since that was all that he had felt capable of doing.

He wishes now that he’d paid better attention. Imagines saying to Dorothy ‘She’s in the cry-o-whatsit’, and having her nod in understanding. Imagines her saying ‘I can help her’ in that low voice of hers, and imagines seeing those cool blue eyes opening again. Imagines Languidere alive (or at least a close approximation of it).

That’s where the imagining ends however, because her kingdom is at war. The whole world is. And Languidere might not have a heart, but she loves her people and she would never abandon them, which means she’ll ride into battle alongside the cardinal witches, and Ozma, and Dorothy, and Dorothy’s love struck knight, and they’ll all die because it’s the Beast Forever, not the Beast for a Little While.

No. Best to keep her in the cry-o machine, and maybe after the dust settles the sky will bring another visitor to wake her up.

Casting his gaze around the organised chaos of the workshop he realises with pleasure that there’s still a canister left of Jane’s carefully filtered oil on the shelf with all the delicate tools she used to fine tune Languidere’s masks. For the past few weeks he’s been using the stuff Ev’s engineers make for him, but it’s murky with sediment and his limbs have been seizing up with greater regularity.

His knee squeals alarmingly when he gets to his feet and ambles over to the shelf, so he allows himself the smallest dribble to help get him home without incident.

It’s by sheer force of will that he doesn’t spill the rest of the precious oil on the scarred bench top when he hears it. Sudden loud pops, discernible even through the thick walls of the workshop. A sound he’s been hearing in his nightmares for months, and one he doubts he’ll ever forget.

Gunfire.

***

There’s a certain steely grace to the way both Glinda and Mother South hold themselves – a self-contained stillness that makes them seem immovable, and somehow taller than they actually are.

That’s where the similarities end.

Where Glinda is pale, South is dark; and where Glinda is slim, South is plump. The Mother Witch has a warmth in her eyes that puts Dorothy at ease and a honeyed voice that makes her think, incongruously, of bedtime stories. She wants to lean her head against her cushioned shoulder and let the exhaustion take her away, but instead she stands straighter and offers Glinda her most poisonous stare.

“You were ever a slave to your temper,” says South, but her voice is affectionate. “I think you owe Dorothy an apology, daughter.”

Glinda doesn’t even bother to look at her. “She is a thief,” she tells South mulishly. “I don’t owe her a thing.”

Dorothy can see the anger simmering under South’s steady gaze, and she seems suddenly less comforting, and much, much more dangerous when she says, “You forget yourself, Mistress North.”

The honorific gives Glinda pause,but then she glances at Dorothy and her eyes harden. “She murdered a cardinal witch, wielded her stolen magic against me, _twice_ , abused my hospitality, and kidnapped my–“

Here she breaks off, and Dorothy is fascinated to see an ugly flush spread blotchily over her cheeks.

 _My husband_ is what she meant to say, Dorothy is sure of it; and she’s just as certain that South knows it too when her jaw tightens and she says, “Go on,” in a voice that brooks no argument.

But, “She’s a thief,” Glinda repeats, and falls silent.

South looks at her assessingly for a moment then sighs. “Either Dorothy is a witch, in which case she is afforded the same respect as any of your sisters; or she is a mortal, and therefore cannot possibly be held responsible for Mistress East’s death. She can’t be both, my child.”

Glinda opens her mouth to respond, but South cuts her off with a gesture. “I think you’ve both trained long enough for today.” Turning her back on Glinda she offers Dorothy her arm. “Come walk with me. I would like the opportunity to get to know the new custodian of the Elements better.”

Glinda is glaring at her with a murderous look on her face, but Dorothy’s eyes are drawn to the bewildered little girl standing amongst the rubble. “Sylvie,” she tells South. “I’m not going anywhere without Sylvie.”

“Leith belongs to me,” Glinda says coldly.

When South doesn’t disagree, Dorothy says hotly to the both of them, “She’s not a _thing_ to be used and thrown away.”

“She has nothing to fear from _me_ ,” says Glinda stubbornly.

“Excuse me if I don’t believe that for a moment,” says Dorothy, her voice rising. “You sent her into a battle–“

“She’s a soldier.”

“You let her get _shot_ –“

“You put that weapon into the wizard’s hands yourself.”

“She’s a child!”

“ _She is a witch_.” South’s voice is quiet and calm, but it cuts effortlessly through escalating tension. “Our law dictates that for the period of her training Leith falls under the responsibility of the Cardinal Witch of the North.” Dorothy opens her mouth to argue, and South gives her a quelling look. “ _However_. In times of war we recognise that sometimes we must be flexible.”

She pinches her lips together, clearly frustrated and fed-up, but when she turns to Sylvie her expression is gentle. “I left for Ev in great haste, and without my usual retinue. I’ll require an assistant while I am here, and had thought to ask the Queen to provide one. Now that I think on it, it seems to be the kind of position that would better suit a young witch. Is it a role you would be prepared to perform?”

Sylvie is mute, and her conflicted gaze swings from Dorothy to Glinda like she seems uncertain where to direct her questioning eyes.

“It’s likely to be tedious work,” South adds regretfully, drawing Sylvie’s attention again. “Perhaps you would rather be escorted home to Calcedon to resume to your training. It will have to be one or the other, I’m afraid. There’s no place here for idle hands.”

“I want to work,” says Sylvie in a voice so quiet that Dorothy can barely hear her. She risks a glance at Glinda, then squares her little shoulders and says it again, louder. “I want to work, please Mother South”

A look of grim satisfaction passes over South’s face. “Well, that’s settled then.” She gives Glinda a look that suggests that she’ll accept no arguments, but Glinda has none to offer, abruptly turning her back on the three of them and leaving without another word.

South sighs wearily. In the waning afternoon light she looks old and tired, and Dorothy feels a sudden pang of pity for her. She doesn’t understand the relationship between the witches – whether it’s a bond created by blood, or magic, or something else – but she recognises convoluted familial dynamics when she sees them. “Thank you,” she says vehemently, hoping that it’s enough, then she crosses the rubbled ground in a few swift steps and sweeps Sylvie into a hug.

Sylvie submits to it for a moment, pressing her face hard into the curve of Dorothy’s shoulder, and Dorothy feels a little shudder run through her skinny body. Then she pushes Dorothy away firmly, and looks guiltily at South like she’s embarrassed by the show of emotion. “Lucas said you went home,” she says.

There’s no censure in Sylvie’s voice, but Dorothy feels the guilt keenly anyway. “I did. I’m sorry.”

“He said you wouldn’t come back.”

Dorothy wants to cry. Swallows hard past the lump in her throat. “I didn’t know that I could.”

Sylvie’s eyes fall to the gauntlets, and Dorothy resists the urge to put her hands behind her back like a disobedient child. “If I’d known...” she says. “I would have come back for you. If I’d known that I could.” She offers Sylvie a watery smile. “I’m not very good at using these yet,” she admits, “maybe you could help teach me?”

She presents her jewelled fingers, the gauntlets still glittering brightly despite the fading light, and Sylvie recoils. “We don’t use _those_ ,” she says primly, her lip curling with distaste. “The use of Elements is a crutch for the weak, and my Mistress will have them outlawed when she comes into power.”

Dorothy shoots South a startled look and finds the older woman staring speculatively at Sylvie with her mouth drawn tight.

“Mistress South?”

One of Ev’s red-coated soldiers is standing hesitantly in the archway. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but the situation in the city has escalated.” He peters out as he takes in the destruction of the courtyard, and South has to gesture impatiently for him to continue. “There was a clash between the Queensguard and the rioters, and someone had one of those new weapons. Uh, guns.” He mimics the action of cocking a rifle, and Dorothy feels a chill race over her skin.

“I thought the queen had them all destroyed,” South says sternly.

The soldier flushes. “Uh. Some of the lads thought it was a shame to destroy them, and smuggled them out of the armoury before the witches came to claim them. They’re very effective,” he adds weakly, “and war is war Ma’am. Mistress.”

“Was someone shot?” Dorothy cuts in urgently. There’s a sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach. She’d sent a yawning Micah away with strict instructions to rest, assuming that Lucas would find her when he returned, but that was hours ago and there’s no sign of him. He wouldn’t leave her alone with Glinda, she knows. Wherever his loyalties lie, after what had happened in Calcedon he wouldn’t trust either of them with the other.

The soldier looks at her warily. “The captain, Miss. The rioters caught someone they thought was a Beast’s spy. Just a boy, one of the refugees. They’d strung him up in the square, and when the captain went to cut him down they shot him.” He turns back to South, “We got him back to the infirmary, but the medic can’t stop the bleeding.”

“Did they remove the bullet?” Dorothy asks.

“The bullet...?” the solider says hesitantly, then the realisation dawns on his face and his eyes narrow. “It’s _you_.” His hand drops to the pommel of his sword. “You’re the girl who tore the sky and brought the Beast.”

“Nonsense,” South says angrily. She steps forward, putting herself between Dorothy and the soldier. “The girl died in the battle for Ev. Mistress North witnessed it, and Mistress East identified the girl’s body.” She waves her hand in Dorothy’s direction. “This girl is an apprentice, a healer, and a particular friend of the Queen, and if you want to keep your head you’ll do well not to repeat ridiculous rumours.”

The man’s face flushes white then red, but he draws his lips into a thin line and nods tightly, directing his words somewhere over Dorothy’s left shoulder. “Please accept my apologies, Mistress.”

It’s all Dorothy can do to nod her own head in return and try to swallow the anxiety that’s bubbling up in her chest. “Maybe I can help your captain,” she says.

The soldier doesn’t look particularly like he trusts her, but South claps her hands together in agreement. “What a sensible idea,” she says. She reaches out to Sylvie, and with a palm on her back gives her a firm push towards the soldier. “If you’ll please escort young Leith to my quarters, Dorothy and I will make our own way to the infirmary.”

It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to obey but seems to know better than to refuse a cardinal witch, and after he’s gone Dorothy turns to South, “What–?”

“There’ll be time for questions later, child. First, we have work to do.”

She wraps a surprisingly firm hand around Dorothy’s wrist, and a moment later they’re gone.


End file.
